Repeating a Trauma of “an unkind cut”: A Fissured Self and Nation in “Rip Van Winkle”

Abstract

Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” might well be read as a tale of a troubled man and his country in a transitional period of history. It testifies to a man’s growth into a legitimate subject in the social-interactive relations. To bolster this standpoint, this paper particularly examines the protagonist’s characterization through the psychoanalytic framework borrowed from Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. Then it moves to deal with Irving’s authorial struggle with creating national identity in the historical, cultural context of post-revolutionary America. After all, “Rip Van Winkle” is a story of a man as an allegory of his troubled country. It is about a self, which after a substantial lapse of time grows into an individualized subject in its social-intersubjective relations.