Rip Van Winkle
Ripping through Domestic Abuse
The story of Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving at first assessment reads like a bedtime story I’ve read many times in my own youth as well as to my son. It seems initially simple. A fable or fairytale about a lazy old man who falls asleep for twenty years and wakes up a crazy old man. It has all the great things a great fable has in it too. Good guy who is misunderstood (Van Winkle),a villain (Dame Van Winkle) Fairies, magic and some kind of moral or self-reflecting analysis for the reader. If one digs a bit deeper however, there is a message or theme that’s a bit more relevant to present day.
Though Rip Van Winkle appears to have juvenile plot, there is actually a very mature theme about relationships that Irving explores. Poor Rip Van Winkle is in a bad marriage. Rip Van Winkle is a domestic abuse victim. Victims in an abusive relationship tend behave a certain way. Rip is verbally/mentally assaulted by his sharp-tongued wife, Dame Van Winkle to the point of submission. Irving does not waltz around it. “his wife kept continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon, and night, her tongue was incessantly going”(Norton 473)
Over a period of time it became a means of survival for Van Winkle tell himself that life would get better or his wife would stop. A typical response to long term abuse. “Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony rolled on; a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener by constant use.”(Norton 473)
If this story was taking place in 2017, Rip Van Winkle may be an unemployed couch potato who spends his days on his computer or watching sports in his lazy-boy chair. Ignoring the constant nagging of his wife to take out the garbage, fix the sink (like he said he would three months ago) When the abuse gets too much and harsh, 2017 Rip might seek relief of escape, like taking a drive , walking the dog or hanging out at the local bar to chat with other guys. This is what Rip Van Winkle does when he goes to the inn where there is “a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village”.(Norton 474)
At the inn, Van Winkle catches up with the outside world through the social structure of men who go there. Irving paints the picture of a place of information,local gossip, and political commentary that is relatable to Van Winkle. A place where he feels intelligent and respected. “But it would have been worth any statesman’s money to have heard the profound discussions which sometimes took place, when by chance an old newspaper fell into their hands, from some passing traveler. How solemnly they would listen to the contents, as drawled out by Derrick Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, a dapper, learned little man, who was not to be daunted by the most gigantic word in the dictionary; and how sagely they would deliberate upon public events some months after they had taken place.”(Norton 474)
One thing Irving does is point out the fact the inn is a place that Van Winkle and his friends go to for friendship and moral support among their peers. Even though the story takes place at an important historical moment ,the years when American colonists are growing frustrated and angry with British taxation and threats to their freedom,there’s no mention of Rip or of anyone being so upset by the news that they are provoked act on it .
The place of asylum soon gets Dame Van Winkle upset and she barges into the inn to let them all know that about it. This is too much for Rip Van Winkle and he escapes into the dark mountains of The Catskills. “From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquility of the assemblage, and call the members all to nought; nor was that august personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible virago, who charged him outright with encouraging her husband in habits of idleness.”(Norton 474)
In the mountains where with his only loyal friend, Wolf ,his dog, Van Winkle finds the tranquility he needs in his life. Irving uses the natural setting of the forest, mountains, rivers to create a magical place. The dark mysterious atmosphere may have played with Van Winkle’s imagination. “He was surprised to see any human being in this lonely and unfrequented place,” Irving doesn’t exactly try to suggest it actually happened ,he keeps the options open to the reader. Did Van Winkle just have too much to drink at the inn? Was his need to escape the reality of his life so great he dreams up fairy-men ,with fancy clothes and happiness without any nagging women? Irving creates a place of fantasy that Van Winkle feels accepted and content. “The whole group reminded Rip of the figures in an old Flemish painting, in the parlor of Dominie Van Schaick, the village parson, and which had been brought over from Holland at the time of the settlement.” (Norton 475)Did Irving create a world where his character could step outside his abuse and realize he’s been ‘asleep’ for a long time to his belittlement? “What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that though these folks were evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the scene.”(Norton 475)
Back in the Town and released from mysterious mountains, the point of this rather somber and meandering tale begins to surface, What Rip discovers is his life isn’t the same. He senses a change. Only upon waking and wandering around town in a disoriented state he finally get told about his wife.
“Oh, she too had died but a short time since; she broke a blood vessel in a fit of passion at a New England peddler.”(Norton 480)
Irving as a little sarcastic jab with the narrator adding “ “There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence.”(Norton 480)
Rip Van Winkle is relieved not sad that the end of his abuse comes at the end of his wife. A king can be defeated and replaced by a president, government, a constitution, and a new flag, but in the end all that matters to Rip is freedom from his damaging marriage. For Rip Van Winkle the only news that seems to matter is personal liberty. Is this the story that Washington Irving really try to tell ?
