Rip Van Winkle a Romantic Fiction
- This is a preview of the essay.
To view the full text you must login!
Hoyoung Park
Mr. Johnson
American Literature
November 5th, 2003
Rip Van Winkle, a Romantic Fiction.
Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving can be considered as the finest example of American Romantic fiction. It possesses various elements such as distrust of civilization, nostalgia for the past, a concern with individual freedom, and a profound love for the beauties, which are all linked to the ideas of American Romanticism (). In the story, these themes are shown through the qualities of characters and the mystical setting. Composed of these elements, Rip Van Winkle can be classified as a romantic writing, revealing the core beliefs of American romanticists.
Irving's distrust of civilization and a concern with individual freedom can be shown through the main characters of the story, Rip Van Winkle and his wife, Dame Van Winkle. In Rip Van Winkle, Dame symbolizes the civilization and the impulse to domesticate (). She is described as a termagant wife who provides domestic tribulation to Rip, and also being the one who is responsible for imprisoning him (). However Rip finds Dame irritating and tries to escape into the woods away from her, away from the civilization (129)...