RipVanWinkle-美国文学（参考）.pptVIP

Rip Van Winkle ——Washington Irving Plot Rip Van Winkle is an ambitionless and lazy farmer. He tired of his wife’s non-stop nagging at home. He seeks refuge in the mountains where he meets several mountain spirits and tastes the liquor left by them out of curiosity. Because of the magic power of the drink, he falls into a twenty-year sleep. When he wakes up, everything has undergone a tremendous change. Theme of Rip Van Winkle Irving seized on the venerable theme of the henpecked husband who turns the tables on his tyrannical wife, a feat Rip achieves by simply outlasting her. Irving believe that the revolution upset the natural order and he never accepts the modern democratic America. He contradicted between work and desire for leisure.After he retured,he loss his identity Theme of Rip Van Winkle Rip merely desires a leisurely, casual, convivial life, but his wife calls him home from the congenial atmosphere of the inn and lectures him in bed at night. Irving never, however, permits Dame Van Winkle’s point of view to obtrude; she does not speak in the story, and Irving elicits no sympathy for her. She is the enemy partly because she embodies a whole culture that is at odds with Rips values: that of the tidy, thrifty, ambitious Dutch. While loving freedom, Rip placidly endured the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle and King George and has escaped playing any role in the forging of American liberty. He has avoided the tribulations of family life by losing all title as husband and becoming dependent on his daughter, while he has sloughed off his responsibilities as patriot by choosing “overnight”status as a senior citizen. The Significance of American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War was of great historical importance and influence. A new republic and democratic country emerged and marked a new beginning of American history. The victory of the American people also encouraged those in the colonies ruled by the Spanish and promoted the nationa