Dear Diary,
Today was a different day for Rip Van Winkle. When I say different it was one many would describe as unbelievable. Rip Van Winkle entered his old, but now new village after 20 years. He told the new people of the village, that he had fell asleep on the mountain last night and woken up to a change. The people of the village stared at him for sometime when he entered the new village, because of his appearance including a foot long beard. Rip woke up during a time where he was at a happy age and could nothing with impunity. This new village was much better than the one he knew before he fell asleep on the mountains. Rip himself no longer had to hear his nagging wife, nor did he have to work for anyone. Now he could be free or stress and enjoy his days. Now that barely anyone knew his past, he could tell stories to the youth and make new friends. His children were grown now, and he had a decent place to stay while living with his daughter. He now could vote and choose his own side whether he wanted to be a Federal or Democrat, he would have to learn about the Bill of Rights, election times, liberty, Bunker’s Hill, and the wars that occurred that took away his old friends away. He had learned now that he was a free citizen of the United States, he was no longer under the petticoat government, and no more yoke of matrimony. Rip Van Winkle seemed to be very happy with his new life and new village because now he could go in and out as he pleased with no restrictions. The younger generation of the village seem to draw to Rip’s stories and every stranger he encountered at Dr.Doolittle’s hotel would encounter all of the events that Rip said occurred as the night before.
My dialogue is directly grounded in the story because Washington Irving allowed me as the reader to pick up a few literary elements which to me helped me understand the short story better. Washington Irving style during “RIP Van Winkle” kept me wanting to know more about what would happen once he woke up, and then once he entered what is now a new village. Washington Irving voice within RIP Van Winkle helped bring the story to life so that I could grasp what was going on in each scene.
I agree with Tiffany on how it was a very different day for Rip Van Winkle, just as it was for the village. For everyone it was a disappearance but for Rip Van Wrinkle was just like taking a trip to the mountain and falling asleep for one day, even though it was for twenty years. But as Washington Irving tells the story rip van winkle was a happy man at the end. Although the story kept me wanting to know more about what happen during those twenty years just like Tiffany. Washington narration style kept me going when rip van winkle comes back from the mountain and enters the village and suddenly he feels like a completely different man and his entire life has changed. I believe that was one of the scene where the suspense elevated. On that scene where the rising action started which is where the story had me wanting to read more and more.
“Rip Van Winkle” definitely caught my attention for that same reason. I put a great emphasis on the Point of view that was used and the moment before the climax in the story which was in the woods with Rip as he got lost. The story started slow in my opinion being heavy with details but all the while left me asking what was happening, with a hunger for the same details. The POV being in third person assisted greatly with honestly expressing what each character was like and how they thought. “Rip’s sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much hen-pecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded them as companions in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of his master’s going so often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit befitting an honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever scoured the woods…” In this small segment you can see the wife’s opinion of her husband and Wolf, her disposition, the dog’s nature and his master’s being similar in idleness. Third person also gave us a clearer understanding of what happened in the woods to Rip. Being in third person gives the reader a little more insight to what was happening giving us the ability to analyze the whole situation.