Irving Reflection Blog

Both of the stories that we had to read are considered to be of the Romanticism period. The Romanticism period was a time when people often used very descriptive writing. The writing would pay great attention to little details and many of it would be about nature and things of that sort. I personally like the Romanticism because it was really descriptive. I think that the more detail the better! Well, maybe not always but to a certain extent, I love it because it makes the reading so much more interesting. The more something is described, the better you can imagine it. Anyway, the two stories that we read were both different and similar to each other. The first story is about a man named Rip Van Winkle. Now Rip Van Winkle was described as a very nice and charitable man. However, he never did what his wife said eventually, his home was failing (Rip paragraph 8). Basically, the whole moral of the story was that you should not let your life pass you by. Now, in the other story that we read, the theme was pretty much to not be greedy and to try and live a life that does not focus just on all material things. In the story The Devil and Tom Walker, a man named Tom is well known for being greedy. His wife is also very greedy and they do not have a very loving relationship what so ever (The Devil and Tom Walker). In the tale, he makes a deal with the devil and is greedy his whole life. In the end, he tries very hard to outsmart the Devil or to beat him, but as expected, he was just taken away in the end. This story relates to the Romanticism period especially because it is about how being greedy is not the right way to live. It is also about how there are way better things than just material items or things in life. This also relates to the Romanticism period because like I said earlier, it is very descriptive. A difference between the two stories would be how the two main characters are very different from each other. Rip Van Winkle can help others and work for them, but not so much for himself. I think that is very strange. Tom on the other hand, uses people and for the most part makes money off of them, but he does not work for them, he just rips them off. (D'Ammassa). For some reason however, the both tend to have some problems with their wives. Anyway, these stories both include a good lesson of some sort and they also both include the Romanticism style of writing. I did like both of these stories for the most part, but even though I really like descriptive writing, I feel like sometimes they both just kind of drug on. Overall though , I thought that they were very interesting and they did have both some similarities and some differences.

D'Ammassa, Don. "'Rip Van Winkle'." Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Horror Fiction. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= EFHF0432&SingleRecord=True (accessed December 6, 2011).

Irving, Washington. “The Devil and Tom Walker.” Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 242-250. Print.

Matthews, Washington Irving. "4. Rip Van Winkle By Washington Irving. Matthews, Brander. 1907. The Short-Story." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 06 Dec. 2011.