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Anyway, this morning I remembered that in college, I wrote a 10 page paper about how RIP VAN WINKLE was about the fear of impotence in the American male
GUESS WHO DID NOT LIKE MY POSITIONING? MY 70 YEAR OLD MALE PROFESSOR
okay, some people asked for follow ups and i need you to remember that this was 15 years ago, i am internet old, and my memory has replaced this with things that are seemingly more important (but aren't) so i'm gonna try to recall
by the way, my 6th grade locker combination at Rogers Park Middle School was 0-22-40, so clearly my brain retains some stuff
SO!
Rip Van Winkle is a short story by Washington Irving about Rip, a Dutch colonist, who falls asleep under a tree in New Amsterdam (now New York) and wakes up like 20 years later
Rip Van Winkle is a short story by Washington Irving about Rip, a Dutch colonist, who falls asleep under a tree in New Amsterdam (now New York) and wakes up like 20 years later
The story does not approach common sense questions like, "No one thought to wake him up?" or "How did he not starve to death?" or "20 years isn't actually that long of a period of time?" but that's not important
Rip Van Winkle went to sleep rather a local gadfly and woke up a man's worst fear: forgotten and, worse yet, old
Rip decides to walk the (short, again, no one saw him?) distance to town a discovers: dun dun DUNNNNNNNNN
everything has changed!
everything has changed!
To the best of my recollection, there's a flagpole (penis) with a new flag; money (penis) isn't Dutch colonial anymore; people aren't speaking dutch (alone penis); all his friends are dead (in 20 years? was there a plague?); and no one remembers him (also sad penis)
worse yet, Rip's got a beard down to his knees and it's white as snow. He's literally a scary (unfuckable), old (impotent), stranger (unlovable) in his town!
that's about all i can remember about the imagery, but i'm also pretty sure he went to sleep in the spring and woke up in the fall which means he slept through his whole summer (prime of life) and wakes up when the season is infertile so, like, my bullshit game is strong
i should probably go read the story again, because i still have the compendium i bought for that class with my notes, but guys, i'm tired today
my running theme in this class was "the fear of emasculation in American literature" which my professor (WHO WAS CANADIAN, BY THE WAY) did not like, BUT it was super fun to write about!
there's a Raymond Carver short story called "Are These Actual Miles?" about a man who can't provide for his family & whose wife has to go sell the car
and the subtext is that she has to fuck the used car dealer to get more money for the vehicle and boy howdy, did my professor NOT like what i had to say about that one
so, college students, i need you to know that pretty much any story written by a dude can be twisted this way and i HIGHLY suggest you do it for term papers
also, it feels Like Fate (tm) now that i have this podcast
i think i looped in a john cheever story too but no one ever told me he was closeted so that was an oops on my part.
yes, i had a literature professor who never mentioned the most need-to-know thing about john cheever
