Question

Washington Irving, “Rip Van Winkle”

1. How does Rip's "meekness of spirit" gain him popularity?

2. Why do the children follow Rip?

3. Discuss the description of the "amphitheater" before Rip falls asleep. Compare it to the description after he awakens. What is the significance?

4. Discuss the meaning of the changes at the village inn. In what ways does the behavior of the patrons change? What inspired the changes? What does this convey about human nature?

Answer 1

1. Rip’s “meekness of spirit” implies that he is certainly not a leader but he is known to be caring, persistent, supportive and truthful. These features of rip grant him a great deal of opportunity because those are all features of a good friend. People like to be around him. Basically, rip is famous for the reason that he is so easy going and pliant. He is that kind of friend that does whatever you want to do. He won’t forever shove his own drive and requirements on a circumstance. The only undesirable trait mentioned about rip is that he circumvents his own work at any cost.
2. Rip is famous with the children of the village for the reason that he assists at their games, makes their toys, educates them how to shoot marbles and fly kites and talks about tales of witches, ghosts and Indians. In other words, children contemplated Rip as a exciting friend and companion
3. Before he falls asleep, Rip pursues a weird man robed in "traditional" Dutch dress and carrying a barrel of stout through a dry mountain gully where a flood must once have flowed. They move through a split in a wall made of rocks and reach at the small empty that Rip compares to an amphitheater. It is in the shade by tree branches and occupied with people dressed in traditional Dutch clothes. They bowl, drink stout and gaze at him gravely, while the crashing of their bowling balls resonates like thunder. When Rip wakes up, his gun is corroded and his dog also lost, but all the persons in Dutch outfits have vanished. He redoes his way to the amphitheater but discovers that the split in the rock wall is closed and there is no path to get in amid the rocks. A gush of water comes down the rocks in a "feathery foam." Rip is bewildered as he cannot get back to the amphitheater.
4. The very character of the patrons seemed changed. They were busy, hurried, quarrelsome rather than that of the familiar calmness and lethargic silence. The changes at the village inn signifies that the society is advancing forward. The basis of new are constantly constructed on the old. A person coming to America from a different country can be a case of new changes. He/she always have to get used to the customs of their new setting