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Rip Van Winkle
作者Author  /  Washington  Irving  華盛頓.厄文

Study Questions

 
1.  In "Rip Van Winkle," Washington Irving pays a great deal of attention to the landscape: the mountains, river, and weather that colors them.  What specific details does Irving include? What different moods does the landscape have? Does the landscape influence Rip's story in any way?

2.  What comparison is Irving implying when he states at the end of the story that Dame Van Winkle's death has released Rip from "petticoat government"?

3.  When Rip returns to his town, the old village inn has been replaced by another building.  How does the description of this new building, its inhabitants and their behavior, signify the larger historical changes that have occurred while Rip was sleeping? Compare descriptions before and after Rip's trip into the mountains.

4.  What do you make of the statements before and after the story? Why  does Irving include them?

5. What are Irving's apparent purposes in his references to the American Revolution? How does the story portray "The American Dream"? What comments does Irving invite about that dream?

6. What does Irving satirize about the new America to which Rip returns? What are the social, political, and philosophical standards Irving adopts in satirizing the follies of the times?

7. Describe Irving's use of myth and legend in the story.

8. Irving wrote that in his stories, he tried to present "a sound moral." What is "the moral of the story" of Rip Van Winkle?

9. Rip becomes a "reverenced" storyteller about the "old times" before the war. Look at Irving's description of Rip's life during those times. Is that description ironic? If so, how and why?

10. Do you think the story evades political analysis in its ending?

11. What attitudes toward women and women's roles does this story evoke?

12. Are there any ways in which you identify with Rip's confusion when he awakes?

13. Identify Irving's satiric objectives, his attempts to criticize his society-what are some "targets" of his satire, and some of his satiric techniques?

14. Is Irving anti-feminist? Consider his portrayal of Katrina and of the wives. How much of this portrayal seems to reflect Irving's ideas and how much is due to narrative point of view (seeing things through the "eyes" of Ichabod Crane)?

15. What elements of legend, folklore, and tall tale does Irving use in the story, and for what purposes? Can you compare any of these to similar elements of Chinese or Taiwanese legends and folklore?

What do you think is the purpose of the "Postscript"?

   
 
   
American Literature Survey I
Masterworks of American Fiction: Ron Tranquilla
American Literature and Visual Art :
Joseph C. Murphy
   
 
   

 

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