"Rip Van Winkle" and Change?
What can we learn from the elements of satire and change exhibited in Rip Van Winkle? Can this old text under the umbrella of Romanticism exhort us to think? Please reflect by 2:30p.m. on Fri., Dec. 2nd.
posted by Greg T at Sunday, November 28, 2010
21 Comments:
From the elements of satire and change exhibited by Rip Van Winkle we can learn to be thankful for the lives we have because when we take them for granted we are bound to end up in much worse situations than the ones we started in. What I’m trying to say is the change shown by something like taking our blessings for granted is never good. Just like in Rip Van Winkle he took his life with his wife for granted and got punished in one of the worst ways I can think of. What we can take from this is do not take the things you are given for granted and try your best not to complain about your life because no matter what your going through someone is always going through something worse. We need to appreciate that we live in America, and celebrate that for the most part we are very healthy. Count your blessings and embrace life everyday
The elements shown are that we should enjoy every change in our lives whether it is bad or good, we should just enjoy that we get to live our life. We need to live life to its fullest because you never know what might happen. Take whatever you have and make the best of it even if it might take a lot of effort. You have to except the consiquences of your actions if you make a mistake and you need to learn from them. Be thankful for what you have at that moment.
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The elements expressed by Rip Van Winkle help us comprehend what makes our lives meaningful. It express the main fact of gratefulness and how people often take the good things in their lives for granted. I think that most people tend to think mainly about negative points in situations, because they some how want to “ fix it” to create a perfect out come. From this writing we are given insight into the fact of positive out looks. Being grateful for what you have instead of thinking beyond in a negative way about what you don’t have. It also expresses how you should live your life with enjoyment because it goes by quickly. Two main over all values expressed are to, live life in the present and be thankful for what is presented to you at that point in time. Try to over look the bad and stay focused on the good.
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As the main character, Rip Van Winkle displays both positive and negative characteristics. Like many humans today, Rip Van Winkle portrays a very wholesome life to those around him who aren't loved ones and allows for others to believe that he lives a life of happiness and well-being. Rip Van Winkle does intend to live a life of happiness by helping others but overlooks a very important part of his intentions. Instead of helping those who are close and loved, he decides to be of aid to "outsiders" to better his image. Many people in modern time tend to fall into this same trap as we strive to make ourselves look good when the reality of the matter is that things may be crumbling beneath. Rip Van Winkle lampoons taking the "easy" things in life for granted, while focusing on everything else. A possible lesson from the story is that focusing on one's self is much more important that focusing on others and the things around us. If we strive to be of more personal relevance all other issues and concerns will fall into place.
Rip Van Winkle makes us think on a deeper level about our existence. He showed us to be thankful for what we are given. He shows that we should all go out into the woods and search for ourselves within ourselves. Taking time out of your day to just reflect and relax is something that needs to be practiced on a regular basis. If we don’t know what thoughts our pure in our heads then we will start to make wrong assumptions. “His mind now misgave him; he began to doubt whether both he and the world around him were not bewitched. Another thing he shows is that if you surround yourself with people that you don’t like then you are setting yourself up for anger and stress as Rip shows through the experience he has with his wives. There are many lessons to learn from this deep thoughtful author.
I think that we can learn that the world is constantly changing so as its happening we don't notice. But when Rip Van Winkle falls asleep, the world changes so quickly its incredible. He sees that he's in a whole new world where everything is different. This can cause us to think about how rapid the world changes and how we can be caught up so much in our own lives that we don't even notice.
The elements of satire and change exhibited by Rip Van Winkle can challenge us to think about the life that we have been given. Like a few other people have said, we tend to take things for granted. We get so caught up in our own little world that we don't realize the change in the world that is happening around us. I think this is very true for students our age. We are just flying through life right now; many of us feel as if we were just freshman when really two whole years have gone by. Sometimes we don't realize the change in our lives until we take a step back and realize the lives around us. The world is changing every day and it is interesting to think about how we are impacting that. Rip Van Winkle allows the reader to realize the life they are living in, good or bad, and live in the moment; be thankful for what you have and look at life with a positive perspective.
the elements of satire, irony, and change/impermanence are all exhibited in romanticism and nature as seen in the various poems we have read this semester, utterly disecting life itself.
Rip Van Winkle expresses the idea that maybe life is meant to be taken less seriously in some areas, and more seriously in others. We shouldn’t stress about the pressures other people inflict on us, but the thoughts we come up with all on our own. More time should be devoted to nature so that we can connect with the deepest parts of ourselves, and attempt to see the beauty of life, and what we personally want out of it. He expresses the idea that others people’s opinions should not impact us at all, and yet that seems to be what controls us as humans today.
The elements exhibited by Rip Van Winkle focus on us finding the meaning of life by the approach of learning along the way. The idea of learning about life along the way is to find the depth in our lifes so that we feel like it has been worth it to live. He also portrays that while we are learning about our lifes we need to enjoy them. Life is ment to have fun but also to find depth and meaning to it. If we do this we will meet the need of a wholesome life.
There are two ideas that come to mind when I think of this, both of them include not making a big deal out of something that can be so small. First that comes to mind is picking your battles, not every battle is one that needs to be fought. Some should be left alone. The second that comes to mind is to take the best and leave the rest, when in a situation where there are problems and hardships going on there are also many hidden blessings that you can find in the situation. Not focusing on the bad stuff will make life seem positive and happy all of the time.
From the elements of satire and change exibited in Rip Van Winkle, the reader can learn that life can not be predicted accuratley, suggesting that it is important to fully live out each day. Also, being selfless helps the individual to feel this fulfillment. If a person lives soley for their own pleasures, I think they will end up regretting their useless time. This text shows the reader the meaning of being thankful for what they possess and to not take it for granted. Furthermore, having a positive outlook will lead to enjoyment of the quickly lead lives that we have.
Looking for ways to make change in our lives turn out for the better is one of the main themes of rip van winkle. Life can throw some very unexpected things at us and sometimes we might get scared by them, but the best mode of action is to take these things and turn them into something that we can make useful and enjoyable for ourselves.
From Rip Wan Winkles, Elements of satire and change we learn the changes in life that make it that much more wonderful. It shows a positive outlook on things instead of the negative way most people choice to look at life.
I think that the main thing that we can learn about our lives through Rip Van Winkle is to embrace change because it is inevitable. Many people can easily overlook things that they do not realize are privileges and not rights. Rip Van Winkle failed to realize the importance of his wife because he was so used to it, and in the end he realized that he had taken this for granted. Every person needs to embrace change and look at the positive aspects of their lives and reflect on them with the knowledge that they could be gone tomorrow.
The elements of satire and change in Rip Van Winkle, force us to think and challenge ourselves, to not take things for granted in life. We can learn from the elements, even though it’s only a story, it has good lessons. If we can relate this story to real life then we have really learned a lesson. For example, appreciate and know that we are all blessed, some more than others but we all have our freedom which sometimes we take for granted. We have a home, food, clothes, family, education all this stuff that is easily taking for granted and we need to be thankful because we have truly been blessed.
Rip Van Winkle shows that everyone should enjoy and savor all aspects of life including both the good and the bad.Many times take our lives for granted. Most of the time we are so concentrated and caught up on the bad we forget to notice all the good. It also shows that humans are not perfect and that we all contain some flaws so it is impossible to reach ideal perfection because such a thing does not exist.
This story about Rip van Winkle is a good reminder that life is not something that should be taken lightly. We have been given quite a bit and it is a shame that we tend to focus on things we don't have rather then being thankful for the things that we do have. Even though the outcome and the punishment of Rip is unrealistic, the story can still challenge us to think about our own lives and our appreciation of them.
Most of the elements that are presented here show that even though that change is always a factor in our lives that not all of it is gonna be for the best. I also think this is trying 5o show that every chace of change that we get is one that we should reconise as a posotive for ouyr lives. Change may not always be easy but with effort and support change cqn be a welcomed idea that will recreate society
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