Unit V – The American Renaissance (1820 -1850): Romanticism,

Transcendentalism, and the Emerging American Novel .

During the early 19th century, the United States was a young republic with a growing literacy. Still, few
women were educated. It was the time for a westward expansion and consolidation of the country to
which territories were annexed such as Louisiana (1803), the expeditions of Lewis and Clark during 1804
and 1806 took place as well, then the annexation of Florida in 1845, and finally the Southwest expansion
in 1848. In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law, authorizing the
president to grant lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state
borders.

It was also a time for migration, overall the refugees due to the Napoleonic wars, as many people were
forced to leave a devastated Europe and migrate to the United States. In Ireland, which was still a British
colony, the inhabitants suffered from different poverty related problems such as the potato famine. The
Jews also had to go to the United States because of the antisemitism policies of the emperor Napoleon.
These groups of people were seen as a problem for the population of the American country due to their
different religions and cultures.

There happened a massive production of books thanks to the increased literate population. Many of
these books came from Europe. Some of the authors that were read during these ages were Walter
Scott and Charles Dickens. American writers, however, were not a lot. The few there existed were born
in cities from the East coast. This phenomenon was called ‘the American Renaissance,’ as it was a
growing powering industry. It is possible to imagine how difficult was to live as a writer; hence, authors
had to rush into writing a novel or a short story for them to print their stories and pray they were
successful enough to make money for them. On the other hand, readers had to wait for a month or
weeks to receive a book as they were taken to the United States by sailing ships and streamers through
the Atlantic Ocean. During the 1840s, these waiting times decreased because of the apparition of the
railroads, which transported books over the Appalachians to the Midwest. Along with the railroads, the
revolver was also invented in the 1830s, which was a technological breakthrough. All these technological
and cultural changes were seen as something dangerous and something to be afraid of, especially
books. This was known as ‘the perils of fiction,’ as the more books there were, the more options and
possibilities were for the slaves to learn how to read and write. Consequently, it had evil effects on the
population’s morale since it could corrupt them.

The ‘war’ against the Native Americans continued, and they were given alcohol as weapons for their
extermination. This led to a sever alcoholism problem throughout the country. As a consequence, there
was a political and social movement known as ‘Temperance,’ this is, the abstinence to alcohol. Between
the North, South, and West of the country, there were different conflicts regarding economical and
cultural sections. Furthermore, the slave population increased from 1.5 million in 1820 to 4 million in
the following 40 years.

Washington Irving (1783 – 1859).

Washington Irving was the first writer of the American Renaissance who had an international literary
reputation as he had succeeded in both England and the United States. In Europe, he was friends with
Coleridge, Lord Byron, and Walter Scott. All his stories are collected in a book called “The Sketch Book of
Geoffrey Crayon, Gent,” which was written between 1819 and 1820. These stories had Gothic elements,
even though it is not possible to talk about Gothic stories per se as the United States literary tradition
did not have Middle Ages.

Irving lived in Spain for several years. Here, he wrote two important books: “The Conquest of Granada”
in 1829, and “The Alhambra” in 1832. Besides, he was named minister in 1842, so he spent four years in
Madrid. Nine years later, he wrote in five volumes the “Life of George Washington.” In terms of his
literature, he mixed fascination with the picturesque.

Rip Van Winkle.

It is the story of a counter-hero who manages to be successful out of failure. He slept for 20 years,
through the American Revolution, missing one of the most important yet interesting events in the
history of the United States.

1. Is it a true story? Core and frame narratives?

The frame narrative of the story is complex . First, the short story is part of the collection Irving
published called “The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. ” Geoffrey Crayon is a fictional
historian who found some paper about D. Knickerbocker. This man, also an historian, was used
in other stories from Irving as he narrated both this story and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” He
does not do anything as he was dead at the time Crayon found the papers and decided to
publish them. However, Knickerbocker had never met the character from these stories as they
were all legends he was told about. Therefore, it is possible to assume these stories are not true:
“The following tale was found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old
gentleman of New York, who was very curious in the Dutch history of the province, and the
manners of the descendants from its primitive settlers. ”

In the first page of “Rip Van Winkle, ” the author lets the reader know that the narrator has
dead ( “The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his work. ” ) .

There are three layers in this story: the people who suffer and experience it, portrayed in Rip
Van Winkle; the people who listen to the story and decided to write it down, this is,
Knickerbocker; and the people who find the story, edit it, and publish it, being this Crayon. Thus,
the more narrators we have, the less we can trust the veracity of the story as each narrator tells
their perspective of the story.

2. What kind of anti -hero is Rip?

He is a passive character in his own story. Rip was supposed to be a farmer, but his farm is in
dire straits and not being taken care of (“Rip was ready to attend to any body’s business but his
own; […] In fact, he declared it was no use to work on his farm; it was the most pestilent little
piece of ground in the whole country; everything about it went wrong, and would go wrong, in
spite of him.”)
His routine consists of going to the inn and drinking alcohol with his friends, who he has
discussions about different topics with. He blames everything on the liquor and does not take
 any responsibility for his acts ( “ ‘Oh! That flagon! That wicked flagon!’ thought Rip. ”). Some
critics think his 20 -years sleep was not a coma, but a realization of how he has been drinking for
said period of time. Therefore, he has lost a great deal of his life thanks to alcoholism.
He is a very irresponsible and an absent husband and father. He is always evading his
responsibilities and his wife, who scolds him for not taking care of the farm and the family. One
of these days, in the woods, he meets a magical being who leads him through the forest to a
sort of amphitheatre with other creatures like his chaperone (“On nearer approach, he was still
more surprised at the singularity of the stranger's appearance. He was a short square built old
fellow, with thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard”). Rip Van Winkle even tries the alcoholic
beverage these creatures are drinking and, as a consequence, falls into a deep sleep that lasts
twenty years. Therefore, it can be argued that he falls into a comma (“One taste provoked
another, and he reiterated his visits to the flagon so often, that at length his senses were
overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his head gradually declined, and he fell into a deep
sleep.”).
Hence, it is possible to assume that he is not a hero but an anti -hero, a passive character in his
own story. He does not provide anything good, such as knowledge, for the community. Being an
anti -hero, he represents a typical motive in American popular culture, this is, the man out of
time. After his long and profound sleep, he wakes up in a world to where he does not belong, as
he belongs to colonial America.

3. What is Rip’s situation at home?

In this story, his wife’s name is not mentioned. She is described as a shrew, this is, a beast. This
type of women are violent, authoritative, and controlling women who like to dominate their
husbands. In the story, we can see a dysfunctional family. Rip has been cruelly treated by his
wife; hence, he avoids responsibility at home, and his wife is blaming him for not having a job. In
order to control his husband, Mrs Van Winkle uses sex, or better said, the absence of it (“for
those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline
of shrews at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery
furnace of domestic tribulation, and a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for
teaching the virtues of patience and long suffering.”). The words ‘curtain lecture’ refer to an
archaic term for when a wife says no to her husband’s sexual entreaties after the curtains
around the four -poster bed have been drawn for the night.
After the 20 years he spends sleeping, when he wakes up and discovers that his wife died, he
feels relieved, which is not how most people would feel after receiving such news (“Happily,
that was at an end; he had got his neck out of the yoke of matrimony, and could go in and out
whenever he pleased, without dreading the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle . ”).
The only way for Rip to escape from his home is to run away to the woods, with a gun in one
hand and an alcoholic drink in the other: “Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and
his only alternative to escape from the labour of the farm and the clamour of his wife, was to
take gun in hand, and stroll away into the woods. ”

He does not think about his wife, but about the punishment she would give him when she
knows about his twenty years of sleep. Furthermore, he does not remember her first name, only
 her connection to him. When he gets home, he sees his dog and his house, both of them having
been abandoned. He thinks it is his wife’s fault as se was supposed to maintain the house clean:
“A half-starved fog, that looked like Wolf, was sulking about it. Rip called him by name, but the
cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This was an unkind cut indeed. ‘My very dog,’
sighed poor Rip, “has forgotten me!” He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van
Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was empty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. ”

4. The Van Winkles and their generations.

When Rip Van Winkle comes back to the inn, the first person he sees is his son, Rip, who looks
exactly like him: he is a lazy man who goes around the town doing nothing productive in his life .

“ ‘does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle? ’

‘Oh, Rip Van Winkle!’ Exclaimed two or three, ‘Oh, to be sure! That’s Rip Van Winkle yonder,
leaning against the tree […]
‘God knows,’ exclaimed he, at his wit’s end; ‘I’m not myself – I’m somebody else -that’s me
yonder -no -that’s somebody else, got into my shoes.’ ”

Then, he meets his daughter, Judith Gardenier. She is not a Van Winkle anymore, but a
Gardenier, as she has married and escaped from that family. She is the only woman in the story
who has a name of her own. Lastly, he encounters his grandson, also called Rip, in his mother’s
arms (“At this critical moment a fresh likely woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at
the graybearded man. She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened at his looks, began
to cry. ‘Hush, Rip,’ cried she, ‘hush, you little fool, the old man won’t hurt you.’”). The baby cries,
probably because he is foreseeing his future portrayed in the old man. So the legacy of Rip is
unavoidable, making his grandson break into tears in panic. It is this idea of the terrible legacy of
Rip Van Winkle that makes us think that this story contains Gothic elements. Besides, at the
time, it was thought that alcoholism was inherited from generation to generation. Therefore, it
can be argued that the child bursts into tears because he symbolically foresees how he will
inherit the alcoholism of his grandfather.
The end of the story tells us the circularity of it, with no existence of progress in Rip Van Winkle.
He does not transform into a prolific man, but he stays in the inn or in the bar, telling stories,
just as he was before his long sleep.