A Summarized Response of “Rip Van Winkle” Rip Van Winkle is a short story that is written by Washington Irving. Many of the themes in this story include things such as the stereotypical henpecked husband and the escapism fantasy. Irving uses bits of knowledge in his short story and they are attractively clever. The story though is filled with fanciful delight, with a turning point that enters into a confused and anxiety causing scene that soon goes back to a questionable and fanciful twist that is soon felt warmly as a happy ending. Irving starts the story off as a story as claiming that it was found among the papers of his reoccurring character narrators known as Diedrich Knickerbocker, who had recently passed away. The story takes place in America, in a small village near the “Kaatskill Mountains” near the Hudson River. The village was found by Dutch immigrants and in it lived a man named Rip Van Winkle. Rip though is portrayed as “a simple…show more content… Rip finds himself at the inn and notices the change, as Irving puts it “There was a busy, bustling, disputations tones about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquility.” The town was now larger, there were more people, and the town was now free from British control. Also, the attitudes of the people had changed themselves. Instead of everyone being idle and carefree, the people are quickly asking about how Rip had voted, “Federal or Democrat.” This is interesting because it now seems that people are more alive since becoming its own nation. Irving could be alluding to the fact that people were now more interested in government and politics since they were able to have a say due to the advancements of machines and the ability to spread news. Twenty years before Rip and his fellow sages were more than happy to find out news about the outside world through a newspaper, but now the times had clearly