Symbolism in “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving

Abstract

In American literature, Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” (1819) is an interesting symbolic tale, in which symbolism has been touched in every single corner in it. The objective of this work is to examine symbols in this short story that are used to interpret significant historical events in the American history, which were the American society’s conditions before and after gaining its independence. This work intends to answer the following research question: to what extent did Washington Irving succeed to portray the American’s situation before and after the Revolutionary War using symbols? And to approach the veiled corner of this question, pen is put on paper the following hypothesis that the interpretation of different symbols pictured through “Rip Van Winkle” may enhance an accurate comprehension of the story by decoding them and identifying diverse interpretations that they stand for. To fulfill this task, an analytical approach has been followed; it is utilized to analyze each aspect of the story to extract its symbolic meaning.