Student Essay

As the author of the first American short story, and as an international creator of an early American archetype, what kind of images of American men and women did Washington Irving develop and perpetuate in the American psyche? As the “first Ambassador whom the New World of Letters sent to the Old”, what kind of messages did Irving send across the ocean with his stories? Long ago escorted into the canon of so-called great American literature, Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” blatantly promotes negative stereotypes of women. Revolving around the antics of its male protagonist, Rip, the story uses sexist, demeaning diction to describe women and present static female characters whose identity is defined in relationship to men. Additionally, as a parable for America’s revolt and subsequent freedom from England, Dame Van Winkle represents an overbearing mother country from which Rip, the hero and archetypal American man, is happy to be free.

Irving uses blatantly sexist and insulting language to describe Dame Van Winkle. She is a “shrew” and a “termagant”; she is a henpecking wife with “a tart temper […] and a sharp tongue” that only grows sharper with use. Shrew and termagant are words meaning “an ill-tempered or nagging woman”, having no equivalent terms for men. By using words that are inherently sexist, Irving singles women out as objects of negative biases. By highlighting Dame Van Winkle’s shrill tongue, which is “incessantly going,” as her primary characteristic, Irving relegates her and all women to a negative stereotype. With her “shrill voice” she disrupts the “tranquility” of the village’s old boys’ club. With the comment “what courage can withstand the ever-enduring and all-besetting terror of a woman’s tongue,” the narrator extrapolates the Dame’s characteristic and applies it to all women. The story implicitly says not only that Rip is afraid of the Dame’s tongue (all of which can be assumed to be shrill like the Dame’s). Irving also stereotypes Dame Van Winkle as a witch, saying she give Rip’s dog the “evil eye.”

Rip Van Winkle, on the other hand, is a “simple good-natured fellow.” Using positive language and diction to describe Rip, Irving contrasts Rip to the Dame. Although Rip has an “aversion to […] profitable labour,” the root causes of this supposed “great error” are positive rather than negative. They are not due to “the want of assiduity or perseverance,” but rather to his fear of his witchy, shrewish wife and to his love of activities such as fishing and philosophizing with his buddies.

Always willing to help a neighbor in need or sit patiently for hours waiting for a fish to bite, Rip is obviously favored and forgiven (by Irving and by the narrator) for his minor shortcomings. Despite the Dame’s “dining” and “terror”, Rip remains obedient, developing a meek spirit and becoming universally popular in his village. His “great terror” is thus nullified and almost made to seem a virtue or, at least, a logical and reasonable reaction to the terrors of his wife. Whereas children shout for joy to see him and dogs refrain from barking at him, not even the other village women support or defend Dame Van Winkle. All the “good wives” favor Rip and take his side in family squabbles. Gossiping among themselves, they place all the blame on Dame

Van Winkle and exemplify yet another negative stereotype of women: women as cat-fighters who compete with each other for men’s favor and attention.

As this stereotype suggests, the story relegates women to minor, limited roles compared to men and defines women only according to their relationship to men. Significantly, no woman in the story is named besides Rip’s daughter, Judith Gardiner, who cares for him in his old age. The only named women, then, is the “comely and fresh” one who nurtures a man and keeps a “snug, well-furnished house” for him. Because the story names Dame Van Winkle as such, it may seem that she is named, but the essence of this name is that it identifies her as Rip’s wife. Like the HandMaid’s “Ofrred” and “Ofwarren” in Margaret Atwood’s The HandMaid’s Tale, she is the dame of Van Winkle, but she has no name or identity of her own.

In contrast to women’s namelessness, the story names a great number of men, including minor characters who are mentioned only once. These names include Nicholas Vedder, the village patriarch and innkeeper, Derrick van Bummel, a schoolmaster and a “dapper learned man,” Peter Vanderdonk, a “well-versed writer,” and Brom Dutcher, an old friend of Rip’s. The descriptions of these men and others also reveal the variety and dignity of roles that the men in this story hold. They are philosophers and “sage[s]” who conduct “profound” and “solemn” discussions about politics and news. They are congressmen, soldiers, and generals. They are writers, philosophers, teachers, landlords, leaders, and kings. Women’s roles, on the other hand, include “gossipers,” housekeepers, “good wives” and termagant wives. They care for babies, old men, and their husbands. Like their names, women’s roles are limited to their relationship to men. Dame Van Winkle’s one good quality, although the narrator is reluctant to admit even this, is that she always keeps her house in order.

If we view Rip as an early example of the archetypal American who has recently freed himself from England, the story serves as a parable with Dame Van Winkle representing the overbearing British government, and Rip representing the hero who has happily freed himself from that government. Irving found value in the past and the traditions of the Old World and did not share the hopeful vision of America as New Eden. His construction of what it means to be an American, however, as seen in the person of Rip Van Winkle,, privileges a man’s escape from society and government, both of which Dame Van Winkle embodies. The archetypal American woman, ruling at home through “petticoat government,” gossips, cares for babies, fights with other women, and nags her husband incessantly.

Irving’s archetypal American would be a bachelor, who, with a dog by his side, escapes the offensive behavior of his wife by sitting around with his buddies by the village tavern, pontificating on his freedom. His overbearing wife drives him to adopt mildly negative qualities as defense mechanism against domination by an oppressive force. During his twenty years of sleep, Rip threw of the “yoke of matrimony” just as his country “[threw] off the yoke of Old England.” Perhaps it is time we throw off the yoke of negative stereotypes and biases against women with which canonical stories such as “Rip Van Winke” have falsely defined what it means to be a woman.

Lori Huth