Amer. Lit.
11/11/08
Essay Question #9
Word Count: 879
An American Dreamer
Rip Van Winkle is portrayed straight away in the narrative as something of a likeable
man, “…a great favourite among all the good wives of the village…[he] took his part in all
family squabbles…children of the village would shout with joy whenever he approached. He
assisted at their sports, made their playthings…” and so forth (Irving 1137). To be sure, as a
kind of “town fool,” Rip is difficult to not like and feel some sympathy for—and, of course, as
the popularity of the 50’s television show The Three Stooges and movies like Forrest Gump tell
us, the trials and tribulations of the foolish makes for very entertaining stories. But is Rip just a
likable simpleton who makes for a good story or does he represent something more—something
uniquely “American?” Upon closer examination, one sees that “Rip Van Winkle” stands not just
as one of the earliest works of decidedly “American” fiction, but a story that, although fairly
simple at first glance, contains a vision of what was then just becoming what is now referred to
as “The American Dream.” Simply, Rip is an idealized early American individualist and
represents a particular aspect of the greater American Dream: the individualist living life on his
own terms in pursuit of comfort and contentment.
Although he never states so explicitly, Rip Van Winkle seems to steadfastly subscribe to
the notion of living life as one wishes to live it. He lounges in the town gossip circles, wanders
the woods shooting squirrels, and wiles away the day playing games with local children. All the
while, he tries not to let the oppressive force of Dame Van Winkle weigh too heavily upon him
with her expectations for how he is expected to live his life. This dynamic between the freedomloving Rip and his governing wife dramatize a key concept of the American Dream: the “rugged
individualist” living in pursuit of his dreams (no matter how insignificant others may think those
dreams are), and the ever-present, centralized authority figure obsessed with crushing that dream.
But “Time grows worse and worse for Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony rolled on…” and
his wife’s sharp tongue and overbearing will grow to be too much for him to bear. The dream of
living his life on his own terms begins to turn into a nightmare: “Poor Rip was at last reduced
almost to despair..” Thus, he sets out into the American woodlands where he can be free and
break away from his oppressor. Rip’s personal escape from his wife can be seen as a kind of
allegory for the dissolution of relations with Great Britain. Colonists, weary of living under the
oppressive British Throne, sought freedom in America. Colonists sought to forge a new and
separate existence from Britain, and as Rip demonstrates, revolutions often begin with the
dissent of one individual who decides “no more.”
Upon awakening from his extended slumber and discovering the new political
circumstances of the time, Rip Van Winkle comes to be a hero to the citizenry. He is at long last
free and has no worry with regard to the “…tyranny of Dame Van Winkle,” and the longstanding practice of her insufferable “petticoat despotism.” He becomes, in effect, a free man, a
citizen not a subject—in short, a new ideal. His ease with the “rising generation” as opposed to
those remaining from his earlier years can be taken as an indication that his ways, those of the
contented, comfortable, and respected individual are new personal goals for the citizens of the
fledgling United States of America to strive for now that it has successfully formed after
breaking its own tyrannical bonds. Indeed, men of the village are said to wish nothing more than
“…that they might have a quieting draught out of Rip Van Winkle’s flagon,” when life lays
“heavy on their hands.” Rip is, in short, living the dream. No battles, no escaping. Just time to
enjoy life.
All the above serves to illustrate the idea of The American Dream as it was in the process
of taking a definite form. Rip Van Winkle is at heart an individual given to his own way in the
society at large, a philosophy that many Americans from the eighteenth century to the present
day would surely endorse as a cornerstone of the American Dream. His weariness and
unwillingness to endure agents of control and coercion further illustrates the aforementioned
“rugged individualist” idea and the romanticized idea many Americans hold to be part of the
Dream that one must go out and forge one’s own destiny. American colonists under British rule
in the eighteenth century had done just that. Then, too, there is the fact that Rip Van Winkle
simply wishes to rest and lounge about, taking life as it comes without any responsibilities
bearing down upon him. It could be argued that all a great many Americans want out of life is
the chance to do nothing terribly profitable after a point, and lead a leisurely life with all the
conveniences available to them. Rip Van Winkle so clearly symbolizes all this, those traits which
did and still do come together in the lofty American Dream