Rip Van Winkle Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

overstretch Van Winkle - Essay ExampleRip Van Winkle the inactive Protagonist. On the surface, Washington Irvings A Posthumous Writing of Diedrich Knickerbockerappears to be a fairy statement which requires the reader to willingly suspend his disbelief. However, further reading gives it a deeper meaning. Rip Van Winkle, the protagonist of the story, has an out-of-the-ordinary cognise in the Catskill Mountain and falls sleeps for twenty years. He returns to his village to find the old order of things changed by the American Revolution. When we consider that the story has been plotted so that the protagonist is absent during such a momentous period of American history, it is evident that the author is attempting to convey a particular message to the reader. I consider that Washington Irvings purpose in writing Rip Van Winkle is to assert that the old, steady when it is not a catalyst of change, can serve as a cherished and valuable broker of continuity with the new. Rip Van Winkl e is a passive protagonist, but retains his relevance until the end of the narrative. Rip Van Winkle is a simple, good-natured fellow who is pliant and malleable (Washington, 2011, p.32), in his dealings with his fellow-men.