Rip Van Winkle Flashcards
by Washington Irving — tap or click to flip
Flashcard Review
Flashcards: Rip Van Winkle
What is Rip Van Winkle's defining character trait at the start of the story?
He is good-natured and beloved by neighbors and children, but has an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor, especially work on his own farm.
What activity does Rip enjoy that leads him into the mountains on the day he disappears?
Squirrel shooting. He rambles into the Kaatskill mountains with his gun and dog Wolf on a fine autumnal day.
Who is the strange figure Rip meets on the mountain, and what does he carry?
A short, square-built old fellow in antique Dutch clothing carrying a stout keg that seems full of liquor on his shoulder.
What are the odd-looking personages doing in the mountain amphitheatre?
They are playing nine-pins in complete silence with grave, melancholy faces. The sound of their balls echoes like rumbling peals of thunder.
What causes Rip to fall into his twenty-year sleep?
He repeatedly drinks from the flagons of liquor the strange men are serving until his senses are overpowered and he falls into a deep sleep.
What is the first physical sign Rip notices that something is wrong when he wakes?
His clean, well-oiled fowling-piece has been replaced by a rusty old firelock with a worm-eaten stock, and Wolf is gone.
How does Rip discover his beard has grown a foot long?
He notices the villagers stroking their chins when they look at him, and when he involuntarily imitates the gesture, he feels the long beard.
What has replaced the portrait of King George III on the village inn sign?
The same ruby face now wears a blue and buff coat, a cocked hat, and holds a sword instead of a sceptre, with GENERAL WASHINGTON painted beneath it.
How does Rip's claim to be 'a loyal subject of the king' nearly get him in trouble?
The crowd shouts 'A tory! a tory! a spy! a refugee! hustle him! away with him!' because the American Revolution has taken place during his sleep.
How does Rip finally prove his identity to the villagers?
His daughter Judith recognizes features of her long-lost father, and old Peter Vanderdonk, the village's most ancient inhabitant, corroborates his story and identifies him.
What role does Dame Van Winkle play in the story, and what is her fate?
She is Rip's shrewish, domineering wife whose constant nagging drives him to escape into the mountains. She dies before his return, breaking a blood vessel in a fit of passion at a peddler.
Who is Wolf, and what does his behavior mirror?
Wolf is Rip's dog and sole domestic ally, described as equally hen-pecked by Dame Van Winkle. His cowering at home mirrors Rip's own subjugation under his wife's tyranny.
Who is Diedrich Knickerbocker, and what narrative role does he serve?
He is a fictional antiquarian scholar whose posthumous papers supposedly contain the tale, giving Irving a humorous frame narrator who vouches for the story's authenticity.
What does Peter Vanderdonk reveal about the identity of the mountain strangers?
He says the Kaatskill mountains are haunted by the ghost of Hendrick Hudson and his Half-Moon crew, who return every twenty years to play nine-pins and keep watch over the river.
What happens to Rip's son during the twenty-year absence?
Young Rip grows into a lazy man who is the exact image of his father, inheriting his idle disposition and leaning against a tree at the inn -- a living ditto of the old Rip.
How does the story explore the theme of freedom versus tyranny on both personal and political levels?
Rip escapes petticoat government (Dame Van Winkle's domestic tyranny) while America escapes monarchical government (King George's political tyranny), and both emerge freer on the other side.
What does Rip's twenty-year sleep symbolize about the passage of time and change?
It compresses the entire transformation of colonial America into an independent nation into a single night's experience, dramatizing how disorienting rapid change can be for those left behind.
How does Irving use Rip's return to comment on the theme of identity?
Rip sees his own son as his double and cries 'I'm not myself -- I'm somebody else,' suggesting that identity depends on social context and recognition by one's community, not just self-knowledge.
What is ironic about the 'freedom' Rip gains by sleeping through the Revolution?
Rip is indifferent to political liberty -- the only freedom he values is escape from his wife's nagging. He trades one form of subjection for idleness, which he always wanted anyway.
How does Irving use the frame narrative of Diedrich Knickerbocker to create satirical distance?
By attributing the tale to a dead antiquarian's papers and adding a mock-scholarly postscript vouching for its truth, Irving parodies historical scholarship while giving himself license for fantasy.
What is the symbolic significance of the inn sign changing from King George to General Washington?
It visually encapsulates the entire American Revolution in a single image -- the same face repainted with new clothes and title, suggesting the change was both radical and superficial.
How does Irving use foreshadowing through the thunder-like sounds in the mountains?
The rolling peals heard during the climb foreshadow both the supernatural nine-pin game and the legend that thunder in the Kaatskills means Hudson's crew is bowling -- linking weather to the ghostly encounter.
What does the word 'termagant' mean as Irving uses it to describe Dame Van Winkle?
A harsh-tempered, overbearing, quarrelsome woman. Irving also calls her a 'virago,' reinforcing her role as the domestic tyrant who drives Rip from home.
What are 'galligaskins' in the context of young Rip's clothing?
Loose, wide breeches or trousers. Young Rip wears his father's cast-off galligaskins, which are so large he must hold them up with one hand.
What does 'obsequious' mean as Irving uses it to describe hen-pecked husbands?
Excessively eager to please or obey. Irving notes that men who are obsequious and conciliating in public are often under the discipline of shrews at home.
What is the significance of Rip's exclamation: 'Oh! that flagon! that wicked flagon!'?
It captures Rip's comic self-blame upon waking, still thinking he merely overslept one night. His chief worry is Dame Van Winkle's reaction, not realizing twenty years have passed.
What does Rip mean when he cries, 'I'm not myself -- I'm somebody else -- that's me yonder'?
Seeing his grown son who looks exactly like his younger self, Rip experiences a total crisis of identity -- he cannot reconcile the man he was with the old man he has become.
What is the significance of the closing line about hen-pecked husbands wishing for 'a quieting draught out of Rip Van Winkle's flagon'?
It frames the entire tale as a comic wish-fulfillment fantasy for unhappy husbands, undercutting the supernatural elements with domestic humor and tying the legend back to everyday life.