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Irvings American Progeny

e and tradition to interesting points of our national scenery which is so generally deficient in our country,’” (Wagenknecht, 174). Irving used his characters as depictions of American ideals and emotions in order to show the drastic change that had recently occurred.Sleeping through the American Revolution forced Rip Van Winkle to cope with the amazing changes that had taken place while he was asleep. “Rip’s country has changed its name. On the hotel sign, George III has given way to George Washington. Rip is no longer even Rip Van Winkle; his own son now answers to that designation,” (Hedges, 140). “From Rip’s point of view, the village he left represented private turmoil and public tranquility. At the story’s end, Rip enjoys private tranquility in a village given over to public turmoil. It is almost as if the one is the price that Rip has to pay for the other,” (Roth, 158-159). Rip’s world had undergone unpredictable changes, but he quickly got back into the swing of his old easygoing life swapping stories outside of the hotel. Irving also demonstrated the volatility of the times by his definition of history. “Irving’s introduction of Ichabod Crane defines a particular problem of the early American writer. “In this by-place of nature,” he writes, “there abode, in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the name Ichabod Crane.” The archaic substantive wight serves to emphasize the incongruity of the introduction; only in the America of the time could a remote period of history be defined as thirty years,” (Martin, 336-337). Irving took this peculiarity and used it to his advantage in a humorous way. He allowed Americans to laugh at the newness of their government while helping them realize the exceptionality of the time period they had just experienced.He also uses hu...

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