Rip Van Winkle: Quotes by Theme

The Importance of Storytelling

Its chief merit is its scrupulous accuracy, which indeed was a little questioned on its first appearance, but has since been completely established; and it is now admitted into all historical collections as a book of unquestionable authority.

In the introduction, the author insists on the truth of the story that follows. By explaining how the story is told by Diedrich Knickerbocker, a (fake) historian of the Dutch colonies, the story claims to be true, while simultaneously admitting to its fiction. This split sets up the instability of truth that Irving highlights throughout the story.

Indeed, I have heard many stranger stories than this, in the villages along the Hudson; all of which were too well authenticated to admit of a doubt.

In the note following the story, the narrator admits that the story is very similar to a German folktale. However, rather than humbly concede the folktale's influence on the story, the narrator provides a note from the fictional storyteller insisting this proves the story is true. Knickerbocker argues that Rip Van Winkle’s tale is not even the strangest story he has heard, and since the other, odder stories have been true, this story must be true also. Irving refuses to let the story simply be a story, further complicating the relationship readers have with the text.

Male Idleness versus Female Work

Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only alternative, to escape from the labor of the farm and the clamor of his wife, was to take gun in hand and stroll away into the woods.

As Rip begins his fateful journey into the woods, the narrator suggests that the only way for him to escape his duties as a husband and father is going into the woods, despite having already mentioned various other methods Rip uses to avoid working at home. This suggests that the problem is less that Rip is overwhelmed by despair over what his wife asks of him and more that he has no interest and no motivation to do anything. Rip's laziness is forgiven by the narrator without reserve, whereas his wife, who is presumably the only adult working in and around the house, is portrayed as comically unreasonable.

Having nothing to do at home and being arrived at that happy age when a man can be idle with impunity, he took his place once more on the bench at the inn-door, and was reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the village, and a chronicle of the old times 'before the war.'

When Rip returns to his village after a twenty-year absence, he is elevated to a place of honor as a town elder. As someone who never wanted responsibility in his youth, he is now allowed to live in idleness as an elder. Rip gets what he has always wanted without any of the work or sacrifices insisted upon by his society.

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