Rip Van Winkle: Irving's American Fairy Tale

"Rip Van Winkle" is the quintessential American fairy tale. It gives a very young nation a culture and history equal to Europe's and is Irving's way of thumbing his nose at a Europe that saw America as an upstart with no real traditions to make it great. Finally, Irving uses it to take a shot at what he saw was a Europe that was long on talk but short on action.

The story is essentially a German folktale transplanted to New York. There are many similarities between "Rip Van Winkle" and traditional German folklore. German folklore is replete with stories of mysterious little men (usually in a forest) who waylay and trouble innocent mortals. Irving has transformed Rumplestilskin into Henry Hudson. Irving mimics the tendency that traditional folktales have for aphorisms to creep into the narrative. He tells the reader that "a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener from use," directly echoing the same aphorism in Grimms' "The Three Wishes" ("a sharp tongue never grows dull"). There is also the cautionary aspect of folk tales inherent in "Rip Van Winkle." Dame Van Winkle is a tart-tongued harridan who is ultimately killed by her own temper. Irving consistently uses the Dutch or German spelling of Catskills, transforming the mountains and woods around them into a kind of faux Black Forest. Finally, in the Postscript, Irving further bridges the gap between Germany and America. He reminds the readers that the Indians of the area have legend similar to the one he has just told. Irving is clearly reminding his readers of the rich lore of the native people of New York and is, in a way, chastising those who said that America had no tradition of folklore to equal the European tradition.

Irving also attempts to close the gap on a young America's lack of history. Writing the tale in 1819, Irving is only 39 years from the end of the American Revolution. Europeans often sneered that America was a young country with no culture. Setting the tale as a lost work of a Diedrich Knickerbocker, collector of lost histories, Irving is reminding his readers that, although the United States has existed as a country for a very short time, America does already possess a rich history.

Irving also compares the American work ethic with his perception of a European one. Van Winkle's village, under Dutch control, is one where the local intelligentsia spend their days at an inn discussing how things should be. Van Winkle's village, under American control, still has the inn, but the intelligentsia have either died or gone to Congress. They are finished talking and are making things the way they should be. There are still gatherings at the inn, but the intelligentsia have gone, and the gatherings are merely gatherings of "patriarchs of the village," and are more concerned with chronicling "the times before the war." Rip's children, who were "ragged and wild," have also matured. His daughter is now a successful, comely woman with a "snug, well furnished house and a stout cheery farmer for a husband." Rip Jr. who, Irving says, was "an urchin begotten in [Rip's] likeness, [who] promised to inherit the habits…of his father," is gainfully employed on his sister's farm. America, then, is clearly a nation of industrious people who do things rather than spend all day drinking ale and talking about them. Clearly anyone can be a success here, even "ragged and wild" children.

"Rip Van Winkle" is a masterwork. Succeeding on many levels, it is the beginning of a distinctive American literature. Taking the traditions of European folktales, it begins to spin them in a different direction. It is a bridge between the literature of Europe and the new form of literature that was to be created in America.