Stypula 1

Harrison Stypula

Dr. Dennis Jerz

SEL 266 75

12/23/2022

Punishment for Idleness: Consequences of Non-Masculine Behavior in Irving’s “Rip Van

Winkle”

To begin with a surface level look at the short story “Rip Van Winkle” the reader see’s

the story’s namesake Rip, living a life of scolded idleness in which he does little for the sake of

his own life. In looking at the story with a very basic approach, it could be imagined that after his

visit with the mountain spirits, waking up twenty years older and freed from his oppressive life

would be almost a reward, but there is another approach to looking at this story that is far less

positive. Rather than being freed from the scolding from his domineering wife, he is being

punished for being a weak and idle man, compared to the kind of strong, dominant masculine

norms of the time. The story serves the same purpose as the likes of Grimms’ Fairy Tales, giving

a moral of story that by not following the standard male behavior expected of him, Rip leads a

life plagued with discomfort. By examining the aspects of his life, both before and after his

twenty-year nap, it can be understood how the short story is perpetuating the lesson that non-

masculine behavior should be avoided.

Throughout the introduction of the tale, the reader is repeatedly told how Rip is a “good-

natured man” (Irving 68) and how he was kind of all of his neighbors (Irving 69), but also is

given examples of his unmasculine nature. To start with, his idle behavior led him to do jobs

“their less obliging husbands would not do for them,” and to take “his part in all family

squabbles, and never failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their evening gossipings,
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to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle,” setting him alongside the women of the village, as

well as with the children, who he offered more help and time than he spent in his own affairs

(Irving 69-70). Besides being written as the likes of women and children, the only male

relationships he shares are with the “sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the

village,” whom are more thinkers than workers and spent their time telling “stories about

nothing,” rather than performing hard labor (Irving 73). Because of his idleness and seeming

ease with the “weaker” members of his society, “His fences were continually falling to pieces;

his cow would either go astray, or get among the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in

his fields than anywhere else,” leaving him with little left of his own home to manage.

As for the seeming punishment that is attributed to Rip for his negligence and behavior,

there is, to begin with, his domineering wife who gives him no end of hardship because of his

idleness. Even his dog, Wolf, becomes symbolic for Rip as a person, walking crestfallen around

the house with his tail between his legs and fleeing “at the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle,

he would fly to the door with yelping precipitation,” (Irving 73). It can be understood that to his

wife, Rip becomes no better than the dog who he cares more deeply for than her, and is treated as

such. To the reader seeing this tale unfold, it can be reasoned then that having such a shrew of a

wife alone is reason enough to abandon such immature or unmasculine behavior, but the

punishment does not stop there. Another repercussion prior to his encounter with the forest

spirits, is the behavior of his first-born son, also named Rip, who is just as idle and lazy as his

father is presented as (Irving 71). This kind of disappointment should have been terrible to Rip

that his own first born had no interest in his affairs or future but given that he himself did not

care for his own life it makes sense why his son would not either, providing another example of

how his behavior makes him a masculine failure.

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Moving beyond the point of sipping the forest spirits alcohol and going to sleep, there are

more obvious punishments that occur from sleeping for twenty years. His dog, which was

beloved to him forgets or comes to hate him, as Rip travels the familiar streets and sees a dog of

Wolf’s likeness, that snarls back at him angrily (Irving 84). Further, his long slumber allows him

to see his son fully grown who has gone the same path he followed and cares for nothing but the

trivial things in his own life and having no resources or livelihood of his own is forced to live

with his now grown and married daughter (Irving 91). The positive aspect of this outcome is

Rip’s freedom from his shrewish wife, however the happiness of Rip in the story is not the threat

being giving to the reader.

Though in the end Rip loses his time, his dog, a number of friends and his understanding

of his country, he displays the same happy-go-lucky lifestyle, content to go on without any real

cares, and seeming pleasure that his wife is long gone. To the reader, however, the moral of the

story still stands as demonstrating the downfall of a man who does not give in to the pressures

and conventions put on his gender at time the story is set. Rip himself may be satisfied by his

ending, but even so he was satisfied being battered by his wife and being on the level of women,

children, and dogs. For those the story was written for, it is a harsh warning of what not to do in

life, and the counter opposite of what is expected of a man of the day.
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Works Cited
Irving, Washington. The Sketch-book of Geoffery Crayon. Project Gutenberg, Last Updated:

September 14, 2016, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2048/2048-h/2048-h.htm.