The story of Tom Walker and Rip Van Winkle are both the tales of men who still cling childhood and seem to have wives that nag a lot but they only do so because they are stuck in this childhood state that is common in the Romanticism writing. "However Tom might have felt disposed to sell himself to the devil, he was determined not to do so to oblige his wife, so he flatly refused, out of the mere spirit of contradiction"( Irving 246). This quote gives an example of the childish ways of Tom just like a teenager he does the exact opposite of what he is told. In the tale of Rip Van Winkle Washington Irving also presents a man who does not have great work ethic and again believes that he is still a child. This element of childhood is one the characteristics that separates the Romanticism period from the others. " The children of the village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghost, witches, and Indians" (Irving). The fact that Rip Van Winkle does not do more important busy and instead spends his time playing with the children shows that he has not grown up yet and wants to be one of the kids."Rip is driven from his home and later away from his friends thanks to the intercession of his wife, who is constantly berating him to make more of himself. His final refuge is to take to the woods, hunting with his dog Wolf and enjoying the peace and quiet as he stalks squirrels and other small game (D'Ammassa). His wife needs him to do more and work a little harder she hears about all the things he does during the day for others but when it comes to his home and family he does not help and that causes the nagging he gets from his wife. Both Rip Van Winkle and Tom lived in a child like state for Tom this costed him his wife and himself because he never wanted to become the person that worked in that counting house ruining peoples lives.
Washington Irving uses great detail in both the tale of Rip Van Winkle and Tom Walker and the Devil the descriptions that go into the characters and the scenes is a new element that was started in the Romanticism period. "At the foot of these fairy mountains the voyager may have descried the light smoke curling up from a village whose shingles roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape"(Irving). This dramatic and beautiful description of the scenery helps the reader get a clearer picture in the writing and makes the writing of the Romanticism so much more interesting to reader than some of the older writing because you want a clear picture of where everything is happening and what everyone looks like. " A few miles from Boston, in Massachusetts, there is a deep inlet, winding several miles into the interior of the country from Charles Bay, and terminating in a thickly wooded swamp or morass. On one side of this inlet is a beautiful dark grove, on the opposite side the land rise abruptly from the water's edge into a high ridge, on which grow a few scattered oaks of great age and immense size" (Irving 242). This description from The Devil and Tom Walker is another example on how the stories are both very similar to each other and the Romanticism era.
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.
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.
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.
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