Rip Van Winkle is the story of a man who in trying to escape from a nagging wife accidently gets mixed up with some little old men and finds himself sleeping for 20 years
The setting for Rip Van Winkle is in the mysterious Catskill Mountains of New York. He describes the Catskills as being magical in their reflection of hues from the setting sun; he also goes on to refer to these mountains as being fairy-like. The setting of the story is quite mystical, fitting in with the plot of the story, which is just as mystical. In Washington Irving’s short story written under the pen name Diedrich Knickerbocker the story of an easy going guy who fell asleep in the woods and woke up to find a whole new place waiting for him and a life that he missed out on.
Most people know someone like Rip. Everyone likes him; he is easy going with a pleasant disposition and is a fond visit to the local hang out. However, he is married to a shrew that is constantly nagging him and making him feel like he can do nothing right. She makes life so miserable for Rip at home that he chooses not to be there. Though Dame Van Winkle is described as being a shrew, Irving reassures us that we should not be too harsh on her. “In the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation, and a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and long suffering.” This Irving said made Rip Van Winkle a blessed man three times over.
So choosing to stay out of the home he left to go hunting. While he was resting on a knoll out in the beautiful New York countryside he hears his name being called. Finding the source, he discovers there was a short, stocky, older looking man carrying a keg of alcohol on his shoulders. This little man led him through a ravine to a group of men that looked like his guide playing nine pins (much older version of bowling). Of course Rip is invited to join in on the celebration, which includes getting completely drunk. Rip passes out, when he awakes the next morning he sees that his brand new hunting gun is rusted out and as he walks back into the village he sees buildings and people that he doesn’t know. Finally in talking with towns’ folk he finds out that he had been asleep for not one night but for twenty years. His wife ran off with a peddler and then died; all of his friends had either been killed in the Revolutionary War (which occurred while he slept) or moved away. The life that he had known was gone. His two children had grown up. Rip’s young daughter had grown up and had a family of her own; she took in her father so that he could live out the rest of his days in peace.
