analyze Rip Van Winkle

Rip Van Winkle

Source:
Watson, Robert W. “Rip Van Winkle: A Study of a Man without a History.”
Critical Essays by Robert W. Watson. 2 Sept.2003.
http://www.smarrpublishers.com/Irvingessay.html

Summary:
Rip Van Winkle is the story of a man who falls asleep one day and wakes up the next, only to find out it is 20 years later. Robert Watson believes Irvin Washington uses the story of Rip Van Winkle as a forum to express his views on America’s independence from Britain. Watson believes Irving has written a story about time, “that great thief that slowly steals the most precious possession of all: life.” Watson thinks that the only way for Rip to escape his past is to divorce it, as America divorced England with its war for Independence.
Watson compares Rip’s confusion when awaking after sleeping for 20 years with the ambivalence of the United States as a new country; his thoughts are that by denying their past, neither has a future. For Rip to survive in ...