Rip Van Winkle

Rip Van Winkle will help any neighbor with any job except his own, and his wife never lets him forget it. Escaping her into the Kaatskill mountains one autumn afternoon, he hears a voice call his name and helps a strange old man in antique Dutch clothes carry a keg up to a hidden hollow, where silent, bearded men are playing ninepins. After many trips to their flagon, he wakes with a rusty gun, no dog, and a beard a foot long. Back in the village nobody knows him, the inn has a new name, and a crowd is arguing about elections and Congress. Washington Irving turns an old folk motif into a comic tale about a man who sleeps straight through the American Revolution.

What happens in Rip Van Winkle

The tale is presented as a paper found among those of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old New Yorker who collected Dutch legends. In a Dutch village below the Kaatskill mountains, while the country is still a British province, lives Rip Van Winkle, a kind, easygoing man loved by the village children. He helps anyone with anything but neglects his own farm, and his wife, Dame Van Winkle, scolds him without end. Rip escapes to a bench outside the village inn, whose sign shows King George the Third, where the landlord Nicholas Vedder presides over idle talk. One autumn day Rip goes squirrel-shooting in the mountains with his dog, Wolf. Toward evening he hears a voice calling his name and meets a short old man in antique Dutch dress, carrying a keg. Rip helps him carry it up to a hollow where odd, grave men are playing ninepins in silence, their balls echoing like thunder. Rip serves them from flagons, then drinks from one himself so often that he falls asleep. He wakes on the green knoll in the morning. His gun has become a rusty firelock, Wolf is gone, and the way into the hollow is blocked by rock. In the village he knows no one, and his beard has grown a foot long. His house is a ruin. The inn is now the Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle, and King George on the sign has been turned into General Washington. It is an election day, and when Rip calls himself a loyal subject of the King, the crowd shouts that he is a tory spy. He learns that Vedder has been dead eighteen years, that Brom Dutcher went to the war and never came back, and that the schoolmaster Van Bummel is in Congress. He sees his double, his son Rip, leaning against a tree. A young mother, Judith Cardenier, turns out to be his daughter. Her father vanished twenty years ago, she says, and her mother died a short time since, after breaking a blood vessel in a fit of anger at a New England peddler. An old woman recognizes Rip, and old Peter Vanderdonk confirms the legend that Hendrick Hudson and his crew return to the mountains every twenty years. Rip goes to live with his daughter and tells his story to every stranger. A closing note signed D. K. insists the tale is true.

Where and when Rip Van Winkle happens

Timeline the story arc, beat by beat

1. The idler
   A henpecked husband

   Rip Van Winkle neglects his farm, dodges his scolding wife, and idles on the bench outside the village inn.

2. The mountains
   The man with the keg

   While hunting squirrels in the Kaatskills, Rip hears his name called and helps a strange old Dutchman carry a keg uphill.

3. The hollow
   Ninepins and the flagon

   In a hidden hollow, silent men play ninepins, and Rip drinks from their flagon until he falls asleep.

4. The waking
   A rusty gun

   Rip wakes on the knoll to find his gun rusted, Wolf gone, and the way into the hollow walled off by rock.

5. The return
   The Union Hotel

   In a changed village, Rip finds the inn replaced and King George’s sign repainted as General Washington.

6. The recognition
   Twenty years gone

   After the election crowd calls him a tory, his daughter Judith reveals that twenty years have passed and her mother is dead.

7. The legend
   Hudson’s crew

   Peter Vanderdonk vouches for Rip’s story, and Rip settles into old age telling it at the inn door.

Characters and how they connect

Character Relationships who connects to whom, and the themes that bind them

Themes in Rip Van Winkle what the story is really about

Symbols & motifs

Conflicts

Literary devices

Frame narrative

The story is presented as a paper found among Diedrich Knickerbocker’s effects, with his note and travel memoranda attached.

Satire

Irving mocks the sleepy club at the old inn and the shouting politicians at the new one, suggesting the village has changed less than it thinks.

Irony

Rip loudly declares himself a loyal subject of the King at an American election, not knowing the King’s rule is over.

Foreshadowing

The peals like distant thunder that Rip hears on the climb prepare for the thunderous ninepins and for the legend Vanderdonk later tells.

Mock authentication

Knickerbocker’s solemn claim that he met Rip and saw a certificate signed with a cross is part of the joke about whether the tale is true.

Important quotes

The ending of Rip Van Winkle, explained

The ending sorts out Rip’s new life and then, through Irving’s frame, plays with whether any of it is true. Rip moves in with his daughter Judith and her cheerful farmer husband, and his son Rip, as idle as his father, is hired to work on the farm. Now old enough to be idle without blame, Rip takes his place on the bench at the inn door and is honored as a village patriarch, a living record of the days before the war. He slowly learns that there has been a revolution and that he is now a citizen of the United States rather than a subject of George the Third. The political change barely touches him. The only tyranny he minded was his wife’s, and that one is over. When her name comes up, he shakes his head, shrugs, and casts up his eyes, a gesture Irving says could mean resignation or joy. Irving then layers the doubt. Rip’s account varied at first before it settled into the tale as told, and some neighbors think he was out of his head, while the old Dutch settlers believe him and still say that summer thunder is Hudson’s crew at ninepins. The closing note suggests the tale came from a German superstition about the Emperor Frederick der Rothbart and the Kypphauser mountain, then quotes Knickerbocker vouching for it: he claims to have talked with Rip and to have seen a certificate taken before a country justice and signed with a cross. That solemn proof is part of the joke. Readers disagree about what to make of it all. Many take the sleep at face value, as a folk tale about sudden historical change. Others wonder whether Rip simply ran away for twenty years and came back once his wife was dead, with the enchantment as his cover story. Some modern critics also note that the comedy depends on Dame Van Winkle as a stock scold, even though the text admits she kept the house in neat order while Rip let the farm decay.

Common misreadings

Test yourself

Rip Van Winkle is a friendly, lazy man who helps everyone except himself, and his wife scolds him all the time. One day he walks into the mountains with his dog and meets a group of strange, silent old men playing a bowling game called ninepins. He drinks from their drink again and again and falls fast asleep. When he wakes up, his beard is a foot long, his gun is rusty, and his dog is gone. Back in the village nobody knows him, because twenty years have passed and America has become its own country. He finds his grown daughter, and he learns that his wife has died, which does not upset him much. He spends the rest of his life sitting outside the inn and telling his story to anyone who will listen.

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Compare & connect the story universe

Discussion & essay prompts for class, or your next paper

Key questions students ask

• How long does Rip Van Winkle sleep
• Who are the men playing ninepins in Rip Van Winkle
• What happened to Dame Van Winkle
• Why does the inn sign change in Rip Van Winkle
• Who is Diedrich Knickerbocker in Rip Van Winkle
• What is the meaning of Rip Van Winkle