This change, and how Irving felt about it, is clear in the description of Rip’s town at the beginning of the story and the description of the town after Rip has awoken after twenty-years. After the war, scores of New Englanders emigrated to the area, turning it into a bustling, industrious, and political town- everything that it never used to be (Moss & Wilson, 1997). Before the war, New York was a quiet, laid back, non-political town. New York, where Irving had grown up, had undergone many changes throughout his life. After Rip had drunk a few flasks of drink, helping Henry Hudson carry the flasks, he falls into a twenty-year sleep, waking up to find that everything and everyone he once knew is not the same. He eventually comes to realize that it is the explorer, Henry Hudson. One day, as he enters the woods, he hears a voice calling out for him. As a last resort, he heads to the woods, up the Catskill mountains. When he gets tired of her, he heads to the local inn. His wife, Dame Van Winkle, is constantly nagging him. He is a man who would rather help others, doing odd jobs, than doing any work on his own property. The main character, Rip Van Winkle, is a man who is lazy and content with his life as it currently is. Washington Irving’s short story, Rip Van Winkle, published in 1819 as part of a collection entitled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, takes place in both pre and post-revolutionary war New York.
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