Change?
What can we learn from the elements of satire and change exhibited in Rip Van Winkle? Can this old text exhort us to think?
posted by Greg T at Thursday, November 19, 2009
posted by Greg T at Thursday, November 19, 2009
29 Comments:
I think that the elements of satire and change in Rip Van Winkle can teach us a lot. The change can show us that if we don't do anything with our lives, they will just fly by and by the time you realize it, you will be old and tired. This shows that if we don't pay attention, we will just be taking up space, and not really living our lives. This text can cause us to think because it has great relevance to our lives. If we all just fell asleep and didn't wake up for twenty years, many things would change, but we would be the same person. We wouldn't know what was going on in the world and really be considered outsiders. When Rip Van Winkle woke up, I'm sure he felt this way and didn't know what to do.
Rip Van Winkle has many different elements of satire and change within the book. For example in the book Rip does not have much of an exciting life. He does the same things everyday and he is not living his life to the fullest. Think about your life, do you live it to the fullest? If not you should start. If you go through life not caring, it is going to go by in a blink of an eye, and you won't be able to do anything about it. Rip was going about life not paying attention to the more exciting things that were taking place, and he fell asleep for twenty years. He missed twenty years of his life that he will never get back. Do you want to be like that to? I sure don't want to. Maybe if Rip had lived his life in a more exciting way he would not be in this prediciment. He passed life by and he woke up in a strange place all alone. He was confused and lost. If we do the same thing as he did, when we get older we too will be in the same situation, alone and confused. So start living life.
I believe that Rip Van Winkle has taught us a lot. It showed us that we can't just watch life pass us by, we have to go out there take chances and live life to the fullest. Rip fell asleep for twenty years and missed out on a good chunk of his life. When he woke up i m sure he felt alone, confused, and lost. If I fell asleep for twenty years, I would be missing so much that has been going on. Feeling lost, confused, lonely and behind all that has happened. The story didn't have much excitement. Therefore everyone should add more excitement to there life. We only get to live once, so make life more adventurous and have no regrets.
Change is a word we’ve heard quite often lately, and it has been a theme for hundreds of years as Rip Van Winkle shows us. I think the statement being made is quite clear, laziness is a wonderful virtue. I completely support what Irving is saying, if you want change, just sit around for 20 years until somebody else does it for you. Rip was tired of his wife’s nagging, so did he confront her and resolve the issues? No, of course not, he drank some brew with a bunch of gnomes that he had met in the forest. Then, after a 20 year long nap, all his problems were solved. I really like the message that Irving is sending here, and I’m going to try to apply this laziness and complacency into my own life so I too can reap the rewards.
The story of Rip Van Winkle is just another constant reminder that life around us is moving, even when it doesn't seem like it. Things change in a blink of an eye. People die, others are born. Every time we blink, we open our eyes to a new world. Little things, add up to a lot over time, big things add up even faster. 50 years ago there wasn't a computer in every house, and internet didn't exist. 30 years ago cell phones were hard to find. IPods weren't around even 10 years ago. The world is changing exponentially.
I think with the satire and change exhibited in Rip Van Winkle, we can learn many things. Rip slept through the whole Revolutionary War which kind of displays satirical elements towards our government. Also, just the fact that 20 years passed in what felt like one night of sleep really shows reality. If you do not live your life it will pass you by. You have to keep up with life, not follow it. Rip Van Winkle can really get us thinking, you can not just throw your life away if you have a nagging wife or any other problems. You were put here to live, so live.
Everyone says to live your life to the fullest. As many people say this some don't fallow it. In this story Rip Van Winkle it explains this quote but talking about a man who does not do anything with his life. He doesn't care what he does and he doesn't try very hard at the things he does. If you go through life with just passing by, you don't try very hard at the things you do and you don't pay attention to all the details your life can pass you in a blink of an eye. In this story Rip Van Winkle seems to not care what is going on with his life, he doesn't pay attention to some of the exciting things in his life. He falls asleep for 20 years. When he wakes up he has missed 20 years of his life. He has spent so much time not caring that a lot of his life has gone by being wasted and he cant to anything to get it back. I think people should start paying more attention with how they live because if they don't their lives will be over before they know it.
Jordan Lawler
This story is about living life to the fullest grasping your true potential and not avoiding your duties. But while these elements are true wants by some people, its an expectation put on others who want no part in it. While Rip Van Winkle feels regret for the way life turned out in the end, if he did not fall asleep I do not think he would have felt this. Being lost in your own mind and being apathetic is a psychological condition just like being motivated and sympathetic is. Therefore if a person is content and happy this way, should they change? Him falling asleep for twenty years (although i know it is a metaphor) is what him miss all of these events, the revolutionary war, and the death of his friends and family, if he hadn't of fallen asleep he would have know these happened and therefor would not change or notice his "faults".
There are multiple things that we can learn from satire and change that were exhibited in Rip Van Winkle. Change is one thing that is learned by all in the story. Rip sleeps for 20 years and of course when he wakes up everything has changed, which in a sense it’s changing every second, rip just didn't notice it. No matter what is going on there is change taking place. One thing that I noticed is how the town reacts to Rip when he first arrives. The town is stunned upon his appearance and how he acts. But after time the town understands him, change their thoughts and most of all accept him now. This just shows how from generation to generation that people are much less accepting of others in the world today compared to back then. Thought out our world today things are outdated in a matter of months if not days in some cases. There is change happening 24/7, whether we like it or not. But it just show that like this small town so much can change in little amount of time, which shows that even a text like Rip Van Winkle exhorts us to think. It takes thinking to a whole new level which some of us have never explored.
Rip Van Winkle represents a very famous Latin saying both in life and society. Carpe Diem, or, seize the day. You must own your own life and be proactive with it. If you sit around being lazy and neglect responsibility, life will pass you by with little importance. Rip's twenty year skip represents how unimportant his life was and would have been. Even if he hadn't fallen asleep, he would have continued to live worthlessly. A metamorphosis does not only happen in Rip's life, but in the society around him. Things like the Inn changing to a hotel, the creation of more homes, and the destruction of his own refuge all show that society will not wait for us. Rip Van Winkle teaches both changes through life and Society. It warns of the dangers of not living by the belief of Carpe Diem.
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In the story Rip Van Winkle, the elements of satire and changes exhibited throughout the story reveal fundamental lessons in life to abide by. In the beginning of the story Rip is portrayed as a lackadaisical man who wonders around socializing and doing nothing. The story uses elements of satire such as irony because twenty years later once Rip awakes, is introduced as an old man. The irony is that he now appears old; his wondering around socializing can be seen as normal for a man of his hypothetical age. This story can let us think deeper into what actions we should or might take in the future that could affect our current and future life.
You hear the expressions, "live your life to the fullest," or "live today as if it were your last," all the time. For Rip Van Winkle, he definatley did not live by those motives. Generally, he was a man that didn't care, and did nothing with his life. He didn't try new things, and took the easy way out of the things he actually did do. Rip fell asleep for 20 years, and when he woke up, he missed 20 years of his life. He spent so much time not caring, and showing no love that his life passed him like a car on a racetrack. This make me question whether I take my life for granted. Not to the extent as Rip, but in general. I think people, including myself, should start to realize that life is pure and passes by with the blink of an eye. If we seperate ourselves from the joys and excitements in life, they will be gone before we know it and there's no going back.
From Rip Van Winkle we can learn alot about the elements of satire and change. This story teaches us that we should live life to the fullest. In the twenty years that Rip was asleep the world rapidly changed and when he woke up, the world he once knew had vastly changed. From what he remembers he was a younger man but in that twenty year time he aged to an old man. Those were twenty years that he wasted and could not get back. This texts relates to us because if we are just lazy or sit back and just watch the world and not pay attention to the fullest, like Rip we too can become unaware of how rapidly the world around us changes.
"Living in the moment" is a term often heard in today's world. This simply means live every moment to the best and don't let life just pass you by. We only get one life so make it count. Rip Van Winkle shows how not to "live in the moment." Although he did not know the drink would make him sleep for twenty years, he still demonstrates that by letting life pas you by, problems will be solved and life will be simple. However, this is not the way to approach problems. It may be common sense for someone to say to face your problems but it's amazing how many people don't actually do this. Rip Van Winkle helps us truly understand what can happen if we don't face our problems; we will become unhappy and wish we would have done something differently.
The elements of satire and change show us many things. It really teaches us that you can not just sit back and watch your life fly by or just not do anything to further your ambition in life or make something of yourself. You must take acion and take charge of your life. Just like Rip Van Winkle sat and fell asleep for all those years, almost everything had changed, except for himself. He wanted things back to the way they were before. Another very important message that can be taken from this story is that life is very short. It will be over before you know it. Make something of it. Do not be the observer, be the 'doer'
The elements of satire apparhent in Rip van winkle is that of how the world is constantly changing whether we accept it or not. It may be very dramatic how he falls asleep then wakes up twenty years later, but this could be an accurate inturpritation of someones life, if you sit back and dont do anything to impact your life, why is it your choice to make the world stop changing? If you think about the modern world today, no one would have thought twenty years ago that we would have a black president. It really did make me think about the world around me and even if i dont agree with the nations choices its still happening one way or another.
The satire and change in Rip Van Winkle teach us a lot about our society. The fact that he sleept for 20 years and when he awoke the entire world around him has changed; relates to our world today. Everyday new things are invented, computers getting smarter, and technology in general grows greater. For example the other day i was watching TV and there were about 5 new phones that just came out. Our world is changing and we cant stop it, it chages every day, every hour, every minute, every second of every day and we just have to get used to it.
Change is going to happen, one way or another. You can sit and watch it happen, or you can get up and do something to influence change. In Rip Van Winkle, Rip slept for 20 years, therefore doing nothing to help change the world. When he woke up, the whole world had changed, and he had no idea what was going on. The world is changing everday, and nothing anybody does will be able to stop that. Technology is getting better, people are getting smarting, and new things are being invented daily. In the story, Rip is ignoring life, he's just passing through. When he wakes up from his 20 year nap, he relizes that what he was doing before he fell asleep, wasn't what he wanted to do. So he changed his life style and started to enjoy his life.
I think the main thing we can learn from the Rip Van Winkel story is that laziness changes things for the worse. Everything changes over time, its common sense and there is nothing one can do to prevent it so sleeping for twenty years and then waking up, it is common sense that there will be change.
Looking at our world today, it is obvious that things change dramatically over periods of time. If you sleep for 20 years, you have to go into knowing that things will be extremely different when you wake up. Life goes by quickly, so sleeping for that long and not living life with excitement just throws everything you have away. We can learn a lot from Rip Van Winkle about this and how to appreciate the life you do have. He is a reminder on how life is constantly changing and there isn't anything we can do about it.
Change will happen regardless of what you do. Weather it be a turn for the better or worse something will happen. If you choose to interact with society it may change for a short time period but unless you do something revolutionary, like creating the telephone or going genocidal on the whole Jewish community, the world is going to continue to rotate and soon everything that you have accomplished will be meaningless. I think that the satire Rip Van Winkle tries to show us that time is forever and unchangeable and that the world moves on with or without you. Which also suggests that you should live your life to the fullest, because if you are not enjoying yourself in the situation right now then whats the point. The world moves on without you. sure you may have to work sometimes but it should be to better your current situation. Maybe if Rip hadn't married such a naggy wife he would have never wondered into the woods and fallen asleep. Maybe if he would have lived for the moment he wouldn't have had such a boring life to begin with.
The word change is used to display a way to alter a situation or object. It is either good or bad. When Rip wakes up he expiriences how he never made a change or difference in his life. He lost 20 years of his life because he didnt take charge and make the difference. In this day of age I do not believe we would be able to adapt to new lifestyles and culture changes. Lately, with the new ways of listening to music and how to comunicate with others, i believe we would have a hard time getting use to the new style. I believe Rip teaches each and every one of us that we need to change our actions and make a difference. Whether its a small change or a world changing expirience we need to take control of our lives.
I agree with Dillon G. when he says “Living in the moment is a term often heard in today’s world.” I very much agree with this because I have heard many people such as teachers and coaches tell me to live in the moment however how many of us actually “live in the moment?” I believe that most of us do not live in the moment no matter the situation and life does indeed pass us by until we take the time to reflect on that moment and realize that we wish we would’ve done something differently which is exactly what is portrayed in Rip Van Winkle. I believe that Rip Van Winkle represents the average American in the story because even though he took a drink that caused him to fall asleep for twenty years many Americans just walk through their lives weather its five years or twenty years in Rip Van Winkles case. Rip Van Winkle shows how people forget to “live in the moment” and be happy with what they have and savor every waking moment and when you look back don’t be able to say “I wish I had done that differently.”
In the short story, Rip Van Winkle, I realized that it holds a lot of valuable thoughts of change and the elements of satire within this text. Time flies so in order to make life worth living, you have to change your lifestyle in order to achieve satisfaction. This reminds me of the poem we just read, The Tide Falls The Tide Rises, because in this poem it explains that life will be repetitive until YOU do something to change it. Although, in Rip Van Winkle, the story supports laziness and Rip Van Winkle falls asleep for 20 years and all of his problems are solved. It is almost like saying sometimes trying to do too much leads to problems, but when you let fate play in, and go with the flow, things come to balance. I don't agree with the point of this story because I believe that people should make the most of their life and value the gift of life. Everyone dies. So why worry about dying, when you should be worrying about dying and not remembering why you lived.
I think we can all learn a valuble lesson from Rip Van Winkle because he realizes that the world doesn't stop for anyone. He stops to take a quick rest, but ends up sleeping for 20 years. When he awakens he realizes that the world has changed a great deal, both with the nature around him and the people there. Everyone is rather taken by his sudden reappearance into society and his home is no longer there. He realizes that the world will continue to change and evolve and it doesn't stop for anyone.
I think that what we can learn about the elements in Rip Van Winkle is that you can weak up one day and see the world you always see it, then at the next day you must figure it out that the world is always changing, because humans are curious to keep going to find an answer, theres always going to be something new, so you must be ready when this change come, so that you can survive in this new world. Also pay attention to the live you are having right now, you need to explore so that you can have a better life and a better perspective of the world .
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I believe there is much in this story to consider. As a student, we do not know the direction our lives will go. They can turn at any moment. So in Rip Van Winkles position where he decides endulge with the gnomes in the forest, it can relate to the life as a student. One decision can ultimately change a person's life whether it be for positive or negative results. I think by being bluntly satirical in the story that the author was trying to point that people should not be passive about there life or who knows, they may all of a sudden realize that they haven't done anything for twenty years except boose in a forest.
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