short story notes

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11.. EEXXPPLLOORRIINNGG TTHHEE GGEENNRREE A short story is a doorway into another world. The world of a short story may be another town or city similar to yours or it may be a distant planet. A short story may introduce you to new ideas or remind you of events in your own life. Although short stories cover a wide range of possibilities, they all share certain elements:

• Plot: the sequence of events that keeps the story moving. • Characters: the people or animals in the story. • Setting: the time & place in which the characters live and the events occur. • Theme: the central message expressed in the story.

You may use details provided in the story to create an image in your mind of a setting—the time and place in which the action of a story occurs.

22.. TTYYPPEE Among the chief types of the short story are:

1. The Tale. 2. Story of Dramatic Incident. 3. Story of Romantic Adventure. 4. Love Story. 5. Story of the Supernatural. 6. Story of Terror. 7. Humorous Story. 8. Story of Local Color. 9. Apologue (a short moral story, often with animal characters). 10. Story of Ingenuity. 11. Character Sketch. 12. Animal Story. 13. Psychological Story. 14. Story of Fantasy. 15. Story of Youth.

Ask yourselves, ● To which of these types does the story you read belong in the above list?

33.. PPUURRPPOOSSEE Ask yourselves, ● Has the author a purpose beyond that of entertaining his readers? If so, state this purpose.

44.. TTIITTLLEE The title of a short story may serve one or more purposes, of which the following are the most common:

1. To name the principal character, or to characterize him. 2. To give the scene, or setting, of the story. 3. To suggest the chief incident. 4. To name some object which plays an important part in the story. 5. To suggest the type of the story. 6. To give the tone of the story. 7. To arouse curiosity.

Ask yourselves, ● Which of these purposes does the title serve? Has it an other purpose not mentioned in the above list? ● Do you think that the title is well chosen?

55.. BBEEGGIINNNNIINNGG The opening paragraphs of a story may serve various purposes, of which the following are among the most common:

1. To start the action of the story, either with incident or with conversation. 2. To introduce characters, by description or by comment. 3. To give the setting, describing the scene of the story. 4. To state or suggest the “central idea” of the story. 5. To tell how the story came to be written or published.

Ask yourselves, ● What purpose or purposes, are served by the first paragraph or the first two paragraphs of the story? Do they serve any purpose other than listed above? ● Is your personal interest aroused in these opening paragraphs?

66.. PPLLOOTT The plot of a story may be described as “what happens to the characters.” Plots may be classified on the basis of their ‘probability degree’ in 3 groups:

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1) probable, 2) improbable, 3) impossible.

In “realistic fiction” the plot is always probable; in “romantic fiction” it may be improbable or impossible. Ask yourselves, ● Is the plot of this story probable, improbable, or impossible? ● Is the movement of the story (the way events follow each other) swift, gradual, or slow? ● Is the story interesting? Are there any points where your interest raises?

NOTE: The “climax” of a story is the point where the interest is at the highest point. In many modern short stories, the whole plot is built up upon the climax; the story exists for this, and when it is reached the story ends. But in the tale, and in some other modern stories, the climax is less important.

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● Where is the climax in this story? Does the whole story move to this point? ● Are there “minor climaxes” in the story read? Where do they occur?

NOTE: An “incident” in a story that helps in plot development is called a “contributing incident.” An incident that does not help in plot development is called an “episode.” Episodes may be omitted without affecting the main story.

● Are there any episodes in the story you have read? Can you see why they are introduced?

77.. CCHHAARRAACCTTEERRSS Ask yourselves, ● Are the characters many or few? Compare some stories you have read. ● Are the characters “life-like”? From what class of society are they drawn?

NOTE: There are two ways of showing traits of character. The first is by author’s own comment, for instance, Washington Irving writes: “Rip was a simple, good natured man,” etc. The second is to let the characters demonstrate their own traits through their dialogues and actions, without any comment by the author. This is called the “dramatic method.”

● In the stories you have read, which method is used, or are the two methods combined?

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Ask yourselves, ● Are the time and place of the story definitely stated, or do you guess them from casual hints scattered around the story? ● Are the surroundings made clear? Does the author give many details on the appearance of a village, a street, the rooms of a house, etc.? If so, why? ● Is there much description of nature? ● In describing people, does the author give their physical features and attire?

NOTE: In some stories the characters or the setting are deliberately left dim (unclear), to create a certain atmosphere or tone to the picture, just like in a painting an artist may give us softened outlines or a shadowy background.

● Is this the case in the story you have read? ● Is there enough description for you to see clearly the persons in the story? ● Is there much use of “local color”?

99.. SSTTYYLLEE Ask yourselves, ● Is the story told chiefly through conversation between characters, or chiefly through direct narration? ● Is dialect used? If it is, what effect is gained by its use? ● Is the style clear, or are there many sentences that you must read a second, or a third time? ● Does the author possess a wide range of vocabulary unfamiliar to you? ● Does he use technical or unfamiliar terms? If so, does he gain/lose by this? ● Are “figures of speech” frequent? Point out a figure of speech, and show what is gained by its use in a story of your choice. ● Does the style of the story display some traits of individuality of the writer, so that you feel that after reading several of the same writer’s stories you could recognize his/her other work? ● Which of the following terms describe the style of the story: swift; graphic; picturesque; easy; flowing; abrupt; epigrammatic; intense; transparent; involved; careful; polished; tame; wordy; flat? Can you characterize it by any other term?

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1100.. EEVVAALLUUAATTIINNGG AA SSTTOORRYY:: SSUUMMMMAARRYY Ask yourselves, ● What is the tone of the story? By what means and how effectively is it communicated? ● What is the point-of-view? Does it seem appropriate and effective in this story? Imagine the story told from a different point-of-view; would such a change be for the worse or for the better? ● Does the story show us unique and individual scenes, events, and characters—or weary stereotypes? ● Are any symbols evident? If so, do they direct us to the story’s central theme, or do they distract us from it? ● How appropriate to the theme of the story, and to its subject matter, are its tone and style? Is it ever difficult or impossible to sympathize with the attitudes of the author (insofar as we can tell what they are)? ● Does our interest in the story mainly depend on following its plot, on finding out what will happen next? Or does the author go beyond the events to show us what they mean? Are the events (however fantastic) credible, or are they incredibly melodramatic? Does the plot greatly depend upon unconvincing coincidence? ● Has the writer caused characters, events, and settings to come alive? Are they full of breath and motion, or simply told about in the abstract? Unless the story is a fable or a tale (which need no detailed description or deep portrayal of character), then we may well expect the story to contain enough vividly imagined detail to make us believe in it.

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Written in 1835 by Nathaniel Hawthorne “Young Goodman Brown” is known for being one of literature's most gripping portrayals of 17th-century Puritan society. The tale first appeared in the April issue of New England Magazine and was later included in Hawthorne’s popular short story collection, Mosses from an Old Manse, in 1846. “Young Goodman Brown” tells the tale of a young Puritan man drawn into a covenant with the Devil. Brown’s illusions about the goodness of his society are crushed when he discovers that many of his fellow townspeople, including religious leaders and his wife, are attending a black mass. At the end of the story, it is not clear whether Brown’s experience was nightmare or reality, but the results are nonetheless the same. Brown is unable to forgive the possibility of evil in his loved ones and as a result spends the rest of his life in desperate loneliness and gloom.

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●● GGuuiilltt vvss.. IInnnnoocceennccee:: Hawthorne presents Young Goodman Brown’s evening of diabolical revelry as the first and last fling with evil the inexperienced young man ever has. Early in the story, Brown says: “…after this one night I’ll cling to [Faith's] skirts and follow her to heaven.” He believes Faith is an “angel” and one of the Puritan elect who is destined for heaven. Unfortunately, Brown’s experience in the forest makes him reject his previous conviction of the prevailing power of good. He instead embraces the Devil’s claim that “Evil is the nature of mankind,” by crying out, “Come, devil: for to thee is this world given.” This acknowledgment, fueled by the discovery of hypocrisy in the catechist, clergy, the magistrates of Salem, and his own wife, destroys Brown’s faith in the Puritan notion of the elect. It also sets the tone for the rest of his life. Critics often view this outcome as an attack by Hawthorne on the un-redemptive nature of the Puritan belief (total depravity), which holds that people are evil by nature because of original sin.

●● AAlliieennaattiioonn vvss.. CCoommmmuunniittyy:: Though Brown successfully rejects the Devil in his physical form, he allows sin to reside within him when he rejects his belief in humanity: “Often, awakening suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith, and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled, and muttered to himself, and gazed at his wife, and turned away.” By turning away, Brown becomes the symbolic representation of Hawthorne’s belief in the isolation of the human spirit. In Hawthorne’s own words, every human being is alone “in that saddest of all prisons, his own heart.”

●● GGoooodd vvss.. EEvviill: In “Young Goodman Brown,” Hawthorne presents sin as an inescapable part of human nature. The fact that goodman Brown only has to make his journey into the evil forest once suggests that the spiritual quest is a ritual all humans must undergo at some point in their lives. Brown, however, proves himself incapable of

accepting this part of the human condition and cannot move forward with his life as a result. Faith, on the other hand, makes a leap of love and faith to welcome her husband back with open arms from his inexplicable night away from home. Brown, however, “looks sadly and sternly into her face and passes without greeting.” Whereas Faith is able to accept the inevitable fallen nature of humanity and live with this realization, Brown the absolutist cannot face this truth and remains in a state of suspicion and ill feelings. By portraying these two reactions, Hawthorne makes a statement not only about the black-and-white, Puritan view of good-and-evil, but how evil can take other forms as well.

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●● AAlllleeggoorryy:: “Young Goodman Brown” takes the form of an allegory. An allegory uses symbolic elements to represent various human characteristics and situations. Brown represents Everyman ("Goodman" was a title for those under the social rank of “gentleman”) while Faith represents his faith in humanity and society. In leaving his wife, Brown forsakes his belief in the godliness of humanity. He immediately enters a wood “lonely as could be” that is enshrouded in a “deep dusk.” These woods are the physical location in which Brown explores his doubts and opposing desires, and as such represent his personal hell. When he tells his companion “Faith kept me back awhile,” it is clear that he feels ambivalent about forging a pact with the Devil. Yet, while Brown pledges to return to Faith several times, he continues his dark journey. Although Brown eventually leaves the physical location of the woods, mentally he stays there for the rest of his life.

●● SSyymmbboolliissmm:: Examples of symbolism in “Young Goodman Brown” include the pink (hair) ribbons, which represent Faith's innocence, and the snake-like staff, which is symbolic of the form the Devil takes to corrupt Adam and Eve in the Bible. Another symbol emphasizes a reaction instead of an object. The example unfolds part way through Brown's journey into the woods, immediately after he recognizes the voices of the deacon and the minister. The narrator relates that “Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree for support, being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburdened with the heavy sickness of his heart.” This action symbolizes Brown’s wavering faith and his growing realization that he is losing his basis of moral support.

●● PPooiinntt--ooff--VViieeww:: Throughout “Young Goodman Brown” point-of-view swings between the narrator and the title character. As a result, readers are presented with Brown's deepest, darkest thoughts, while also receiving an objective view of his behavior. Early in the story readers learn from Brown himself that he expects his journey to be a one-time event: “Well, [Faith is] a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven.” In contrast, readers get an intriguing perspective on Brown's mad dash to the Devil’s altar from the objective narrator: “The whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds … But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank

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not from its other horrors.” By the end of the story, the narrator supplies the only point of view; Brown's voice is totally absent. This shift symbolizes the loss of Brown's faith.

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●● FFoorreesshhaaddoowwiinngg:: Hawthorne uses foreshadowing to build suspense and offer clues as to the story’s direction. As Brown leaves for his mysterious journey, Faith voices her doubts: “pr’y thee, put off your journey until sunrise and sleep in your own bed to-night. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts, that she’s afeard of herself sometimes.” This statement predicts Faith’s betrayal and her appearance at the Black Mass. Brown offers a second example of foreshadowing during a brief monologue: “What a wretch I am to leave her on such an errand … Methought as she spoke there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be done tonight. But no, no; 't would kill her to think it.” Here, Hawthorne hints both at Brown's later confusion over whether he had dreamed his experience and the symbolic death of Faith's innocence at the Black Mass.

●● RRoommaannttiicciissmm:: Romanticism was a literary movement originating in the 18th-century that emphasized imagination and emotion, yet it was also marked by sensibility and autobiographical elements. According to Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia, Romanticists held that absolute principles lead to personal failure. Based on the destiny of the title character, it is clear Hawthorne subscribes to this theory as well. Unable to accept the duality of human nature (“good & evil” can often exist side by side) goodman Brown lives out the rest of his days as “a stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man.” Other examples of the Romanticist at work include an underlying message in “Young Goodman Brown” that urges readers to examine the effect their behavior has on others and to change accordingly. This message illustrates the Romanticist conviction that human nature can change for the better.

Study Guides from, Short Stories for Students: Presenting Analysis, Context and Criticism on Commonly Studied Short Stories (Volume 1).

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One of Edgar Allan Poe's most famous short stories, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” was first published in the January, 1843 edition of James Russell Lowell's The Pioneer and was reprinted in the August 23, 1845 issue of The Broadway Journal. The story is a psychological portrait of a mad narrator who kills a man and afterward hears his victim's relentless heartbeat. While “The Tell-Tale Heart” and his other short stories were not critically acclaimed during his lifetime, Poe earned respect among his peers as a competent writer, insightful literary critic, and gifted poet, particularly after the publication of his famous poem, “The Raven,” in 1845. After Poe's death in 1849, some critics faulted his obsession with dark and depraved themes. Other critics, like George Woodberry in his 1885 study of Poe, considered “The Tell-Tale Heart” merely a “tale of conscience.” But this simplistic view has changed over the years as more complex views of Poe and his works have emerged. Poe is now considered a forefather of two literary genres, detective stories and science fiction, and is regarded as an important writer of psychological thrillers and horror. “The Tell-Tale Heart” is simultaneously a horror story and psychological thriller told from a first-person perspective. It is admired as an excellent example of how a short story can produce an effect on the reader. Poe believed that all good literature must create a unity of effect on the reader and this effect must reveal truth or evoke emotions. “The Tell-Tale Heart” exemplifies Poe's ability to expose the dark side of humankind and is a harbinger of novels and films dealing with psychological realism.

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●● GGuuiilltt && IInnnnoocceennccee:: The guilt of the narrator is a major theme in “The Tell-Tale Heart.” The story is about a mad person who, after killing a companion for no apparent reason, hears an interminable heartbeat and releases his overwhelming sense of guilt by shouting his confession to the police. Indeed, some early critics saw the story as a straightforward parable about self-betrayal by the criminal's conscience. The narrator never pretends to be innocent, fully admitting that he has killed the old man because of the victim's pale blue, film-covered eye which the narrator believes to be a malignant force. The narrator suggests that there are uncontrollable forces which can drive people to commit violent acts. In the end, however, Poe's skillful writing allows the reader to sympathize with the narrator’s miserable state despite fully recognizing that he is guilty by reason of insanity.

● Sanity & Insanity: Closely related to the theme of guilt and innocence is the issue of sanity. From the first line of the story (True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will you say that I am mad?) the reader recognizes that something strange has occurred. His obsession with conveying to his audience that he is sane only

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amplifies his lack of sanity. The first tangible sign that the narrator is indeed mad appears in the second paragraph, when he compares the old man’s eye to a vulture’s eye. He explains his decision to “take the life of the old man” in order to free himself from the curse of the eye. The narrator’s argument that he is sane, calculating, and methodical is unconvincing, however, and his erratic and confused language suggests that he is disordered. Thus, what the narrator considers to be evidence of a sane person—the meticulous and thoughtful plans required to carry out a ghastly and unpleasant deed—are interpreted instead by the reader to be manifestations of insanity.

●● TTiimmee:: A secondary theme in “The Tell-Tale Heart” is the role of time as a pervasive force throughout the story. Some critics note that the narrator is obsessed with time. While the entire narrative is told as one long flashback, the narrator is painfully aware of the agonizing effect on him of time. Although the action in this narrative occurs mainly during one long night, the numerous references the narrator makes to time show that the horror he experiences has been building over time. From the beginning, he explains that his obsession with ridding the curse of the eye has “haunted [him] day and night.” For seven long nights the narrator waits for the right moment to murder his victim. When on the eighth night the old man realizes that someone is in his room, the narrator remains still for an entire hour. The old man’s terror is also felt by the narrator, who had endured “night after night hearkening to the death watches in the wall.” (Death watches are a type of small beetle that live in wood and make a ticking sound.) For the narrator, death and time are closely linked. He explains that “the old man's hour had come,” all the while painfully aware of the hours it takes to kill a victim and clean up the scene of the crime. What drives the narrator over the edge is hearing the overwhelming sound of a heartbeat, which he compares to “a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.” Yet after killing the old man, the narrator says that for “many minutes, the heart beat on.” He repeats his comparison of the heartbeat to a ticking watch as the unrelenting sound drives him to confess to the police. The narrator’s hour has also arrived.

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●● PPooiinntt--ooff--VViieeww:: A notable aspect of “The Tell-Tale Heart” is that the story is told from the first-person point-of-view. The story is a monologue of a nervous narrator telling the reader how he murdered someone. He is eventually driven to confess to the police. The entire straightforward narrative is told from his point of view in a nervous tone. Through Poe’s masterful and inventive writing, the narrator’s twisted logic increasingly reveals that he is insane. By using a first-person narrative, Poe heightens the tension and fear running through the mind of the narrator. There is a clear connection between the language used by the narrator and his psychological state. The narrator switches between calm, logical statements and quick, irrational outbursts. His use of frequent exclamations reveals his extreme nervousness. The first-person point of view draws the reader into the mind of the insane narrator, enabling one to ironically sympathize with

his wretched state of mind. Some critics suggest that the entire narrative represents a kind of confession, as at a trial or police station. Others consider the first-person point of view as a logical way to present a parable of self-betrayal by the criminal’s conscience—a remarkable record of the voice of a guilty mind.

●● DDeennoouueemmeenntt:: The denouement, or the resolution, of the narrative occurs in “The Tell-Tale Heart” when the narrator, prompted by the incessant sound of a beating heart, can no longer contain his ever-increasing sense of guilt. Poe is regarded by literary critics as having helped define the architecture of the modern short story, in which its brevity requires an economical use of sentences and paragraphs and the climactic ending often occurs in the last paragraph. The abrupt ending in this story is calculated to concentrate an effect on the reader. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” the crisis of conscience is resolved when the murderer shrieks the last lines of the story: “I admit the deed!—tear up the planks!—here, here!—it is the beating of his hideous heart!” This abrupt outburst is a shock to the reader, a sudden bursting of the tension that has filled the story, and it provides the dramatic, emotional conclusion to the story.

●● AAeesstthheettiicciissmm aanndd AArraabbeessqquuee:: Poe was a writer concerned more with style and mood than his American contemporaries were, like James Fenimore Cooper, whose fiction was often morally didactic. Poe believed that a story should create a mood in a reader, or evoke emotions in order to be successful, and that it should not try to teach the reader a lesson. He called his style “arabesque,” and it was notable for its ornate, intricate prose that sought to create a feeling of unsettlement in the reader. This arabesque prose became a primary component of the “art for art's sake” movement, known as Aestheticism, that began in France in the 19th-century. Poe’s works were highly esteemed by French writers, like the poet Charles Baudelaire, and their emulation of his style eventually influenced the Symbolists and helped bring an end to the Victorian age in literature. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” an example of arabesque prose is when the narrator describes sneaking into the old man’s room in the middle of the night: “I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief—oh no!—it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe.” Instead of simply stating that he had heard a groan, the narrator describes the sound in detail, creating in the reader a sense of suspense and foreboding.

●● DDooppppeellggaannggeerr:: In literature, a doppelganger is a character that functions as the main character's double in order to highlight the main character’s personality or act as a foil to it. Some critics have maintained that in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the old man functions as a doppelganger to the narrator. Thus, the narrator is truly mad, and he kills the old man because he cannot stand himself, perhaps fearing becoming old or disfigured like him. The narrator recounts evidence to support this idea: he does not hate the man, in fact, he professes to love him; on the eighth night when the narrator sneaks into his room,

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the old man awakens, sits bolt upright in bed and listens in silence for an hour in the darkness, as does the narrator. Most notably, when the old man begins to moan, the narrator admits that the same sound had “welled up from my own bosom” many nights. When he hears the man’s heart quicken with terror, he admits that he is nervous, too. Other critics have maintained that the old man does not exist. After all, the narrator tells police that it was he who screamed, and it is not stated that the police actually found a body. According to this viewpoint, the old man’s cloudy eye is nothing more than a twisted fixation of the narrator’s own mind, and the relentless heartbeat is not the old man’s, but the narrator’s.

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Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle" was created during a period when America demanded a new type of literature to represent its vision of itself. At the end of the eighteenth century, the writing coming out of the colonies and the new nation tended toward schoolbooks and sermons and historical essays, developing ideas that had come out of Europe. There was little to distinguish American writing from British. "Rip Van Winkle" is one of the best-known short stories in American literature. That is to say, the character of Rip Van Winkle, the man who sleeps for twenty years and awakens to a greatly changed world and a long beard, is one of the best-known characters in American popular culture, widely recognized through his many appearances and references in books, movies, cartoons, and advertisements. The story was first published in 1819 in a collection called The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. The book was issued in installments in the United States and was so successful that Irving arranged for a British edition. This became the first book by an American writer to achieve international success. While many pieces from the collection have been forgotten, “Rip Van Winkle” has never gone out of print and is widely available in textbooks and anthologies, including the multi-volume set The Complete Works of Washington Irving published by Twayne. "Rip Van Winkle" is based on German folk tales that Irving learned about through a lifetime of reading and years of travel in Europe. One of his goals was to give the United States, a new country, some of the same feeling of tradition that older nations had because of their traditional lore. For several of his stories Irving borrowed European plots, but transported them into American settings. In a humorous context, "Rip Van Winkle" deals with issues of politics, as he shows how the American Revolution changed one small village, and gender issues, as he shows the comical relationship between a lazy husband and a bad-tempered wife.

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●● AAmmeerriiccaann RReevvoolluuttiioonn:: Rip Van Winkle journeys into the mountains and falls asleep during the time when "the country was yet a province of Great Britain." The local inn where Rip spends much of his time has a sign outside with a portrait of "His Majesty George the Third," who ruled Great Britain from 1760 to his death in 1820. Other than the portrait, there is no indication in the early part of the story that Rip and his friends are aware of politics, or concerned about it in any way. Various critics have used clues in the story and their knowledge of history to place the beginning anywhere from 1769 to 1774. Although in other parts of the colonies taxpayers are already angry by this time about taxation without representation and other affronts, the men of this village talk endlessly about nothing.

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When Rip returns, sometime between 1789-94, significant changes have occurred. The American Revolution has come and gone, the former colonies are an independent nation, and George Washington is the first president of the U.S. What changes have independence made in a small village? It is larger, of course, with more people, and the new people do not know Rip. Beyond these superficial changes, Rip notices something else: “The very character of the people seemed changed.” There is still a crowd gathered around the local inn, but now their conversation carries “a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity.” One man stands among from the crowd “haranguing vehemently” about politics. In this new independent world, it appears, men must take notice of politics, if not by serving in the new government then by being informed and carrying on debate. Some of Rip's old friends from the inn have answered the call: one was lost in battle during the war, and another became a general and then a congressman. On the other hand, much is unchanged. Rip is initially startled to see that his beloved inn has a different, shabbier appearance and a new owner. But outside, over the bench, is the same sign that used to bear the portrait of King George. Rip notices that the face on the portrait is the same, although “the red coat was changed for one of blue and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a sceptre, the head was decorated with a cocked hat,'' and the sign now reads “General Washington.” With the exception of one tense moment when he declares his loyalty to the King, Rip soon returns to his old life, no different than he lived it the day he went up the mountain. He resumes his spot in front of the tavern and establishes himself as one of the new crowd. Gradually he learns to understand their political talk, but he prefers to tell stories of the old times “before the war.” Indeed, although he is no longer a subject but a free man, “the changes of states and empires made but little impression on him." Critics have argued over Irving's point since the story first appeared, and in his own lifetime Irving faced charges that he was unpatriotic because he lived abroad for so long. Is he implying in "Rip Van Winkle" that the difference between King George and General Washington is simply a matter of the same face in different clothing? Is he using Rip's lack of interest in independence to further develop his laziness and indifference? Is he calling for more involvement in politics, or less? Like all good literature, this story raises more questions than it answers, but several of the questions clearly have to do with the significance of the American Revolution.

●● MMaarriittaall CCoonnfflliicctt:: If Rip's life has not been much changed by the American Revolution and the coming of independence, it is greatly changed by waking up to find that his wife has died. From his point of view (and from the view of the narrator), his life before he falls asleep is one of constant torment at the hands of an unreasonable wife. He is a "simple good-natured man," an "obedient hen-pecked husband” who has learned "the virtues of patience and long-suffering" through the constant scolding of his wife. She, on the other hand, is one of those “shrews at home” who creates a “fiery furnace of domestic tribulation.”

This is the version of the Van Winkle marriage that the story presents, but it is not difficult to peer behind the curtain of irony in the narrator's voice and see things in another light. The fact is, although she has become an incurable nag, Dame Van Winkle has reason to be angry. If Rip is always willing to "assist a neighbor even in the roughest toil," including "building stone-fences," why are his own fences “continually falling to pieces?" If he has found time to be the man who played with the neighborhood children, "made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories," why are his own children "as ragged and wild as if they belonged to nobody?" It is true that “everything he said or did was sure to produce a torrent of household eloquence” from Dame Van Winkle, but it is hard to see what Rip might be doing to earn praise from her. Rip has a moment, upon first returning to his decaying house after his long sleep, when he is appreciative of his wife's contributions. He acknowledges to himself that she had always kept the house "in neat order," and that without her presence the house seems "empty, forlorn." But the moment passes quickly and when he finally learns that she has died (bursting a blood vessel while yelling at a peddler) he experiences the news as "a drop of comfort." Settling in with his daughter's family, he is relieved to be out from "the yoke of matrimony." The reader is left to wonder how relieved Dame Van Winkle was on the day she realized that something had happened to her husband up in the mountains and he was not coming back.

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●● FFrraammee SSttrruuccttuurree:: Although the part of the story that carries the plot is relatively straightforward and chronological, this main section of “Rip Van Winkle” is introduced and followed by other material that does not directly connected with the plot. This kind of structure is sometimes called a “frame-structure,” because the beginning and ending material can be said to envelop the main story like a frame envelops a picture. “Rip Van Winkle” has two pieces of writing before the actual tale begins (a quotation in verse, and a note explaining where the story came from). Moreover, in most editions one piece afterward (another note from the narrator attesting to the truth of the story, and quoting a letter from Knickerbocker affirming that the story is “beyond the possibility of doubt"). A postscript containing bits of lore from the Native American Indians who have long lived in the Catskill region was added by Irving in 1848, but most modern editions of the story do not include this section. With the frame-structure, Irving emphasizes the truth of the tale and at the same time as an author, he personally distances himself from responsibility of that truth. In other words, he protests too much. He does not expect the reader to take the tale seriously, and every time he insists on its accuracy he puts that accuracy further into doubt in the reader’s mind. The only one who knows what Rip saw on that mountain is Rip himself. He has told the story frequently, but Rip himself is not the narrator of "Rip Van Winkle." In the note

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NNOOTTEESS::

at the end of the story, Knickerbocker claims to have heard the story from Rip's own mouth and Knickerbocker gives it his "full belief." But it is not Knickerbocker, either, who tells the story. In reality, a different narrator tells the story because, readers of Washington Irving’s entire story collection, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, know that the narrator of all the stories (including “Rip Van Winkle” is a gentleman called Geoffrey Crayon). Mr. Geoffrey Crayon (who is supposedly the author of the book) claims to have found the manuscript of "Rip Van Winkle" among papers left behind by the historian Knickerbocker after his death, and Crayon appears to have great respect towards Knickerbocker’s "unquestionable authority." The frame-structure creates, then, several layers of doubt upon the reader. Mr. Crayon, of questionable judgment, has the story from the unreliable Knickerbocker (if he is telling the truth about the manuscript), who has it from Rip, who in the beginning used to “vary on some points every time he told it." To read the story and ignore the frame is to miss Irving's insistence that the story is merely a piece of “FICTION.”

NNOOTTEESS::

●● MMoocckk--HHeerrooiicc:: A frequent device used by comic writers is the mock-heroic, or the borrowing of elements from epic literature and using them to tell a trivial or ridiculous tale. The quotation that opens “Rip Van Winkle,” from the English playwright William Cartwright, is an example of the mock-heroic. It is a simple passage, an unnamed speaker swearing by the Viking god Woden to be always truthful. True epics, which the mock-heroic imitates, often begin with an invocation, or an application to a deity to guide the writing to follow. In this story, the quotation from Cartwright (which has been supplied by the narrator himself and has nothing to do with the plot of the story) reinforces the claim of truthfulness, and uses dramatic tone to make the claim seem serious. This is Irving's method throughout the frame: he keeps a serious tone while he claims to be telling the truth, but often betrays himself to demonstrate that he is not. Typically, the epic tale begins with the hero being forced to leave his home and setting off into the wilderness where he meets new and threatening people and engages in battles or contests with them. Rip is forced from his home by his wife's temper, and when he sets off into the woods with his gun he soon meets the group of strangely-dressed men bowling. The structure is the same at its core, but the individual elements in "Rip Van Winkle" are silly, presented in a serious tone.

●● RRoommaannttiicciissmm:: Romanticism is a literary movement that swept through Europe and then the United States in the 18th- and 19th-centuries. It affected literature and the other arts, as well as philosophy and politics, and it can be described as a breaking away from formal, classical structures and embracing imagination and spirit over intellect. In literature, several characteristics came to typify romanticism, and many of these are found in "Rip Van Winkle." A central theme of romantic literature is a reverence for nature. The fact that Rip leaves the city and ventures forth into the rugged mountains, where he undergoes a life-changing experience, is a common romantic plot element. When Rip is especially

troubled by the stresses of civilized, city life (that is, by his wife), he has no choice but to "stroll away into the woods." In the story, nature is described with as much attention to imagination as to accurate detail: the "fairy mountains" surrounding Rip's village reach a "noble height" with their "magical hues and shapes." The opening in the cliffs opens and closes with “no traces.” The drug-induced sleep, the mysterious strangers, and the idea that they might be ghosts from the past, are also found frequently in romantic literature. Critics often describe the romantic period in American literature as beginning around 1830, ten years after the publication of "Rip Van Winkle," but romanticism flourished in Great Britain from about 1798. An avid reader and traveler, Irving was adept at borrowing from the literatures of other cultures and transporting themes and techniques to his new American literature.


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