Rip Van Winkle's Romantic Heroism Whitney brewer College

In the Washington Irving narrative that bears his name, Rip Van Winkle proves throughout the entire story that he is a romantic hero. Romantic heroes focus around rejection of convention, individuality, and personal expression shown through many different qualities in a person and their actions. Rip shows why he is a romantic hero in various ways, a few of which being his love of nature, his independence and freeness, and his straightforward sense of honor.

Rip Van Winkle has an abiding love for nature. He uses nature as his outlet when he is stressed, sad, annoyed, or whether he simply needs a get away to enjoy himself and have fun. In the story, the narrator states of Rip that “he would carry a fowling-piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons” (Irving, 4). It would be safe to say that nature is his safe haven. You can tell how much he loves nature by the way he speaks of it and describes the mountains. He says, “They are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they gather a hood of gray” (Irving, 3). Rip views himself as...