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(2015
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2015 #2a: Short Essay (Favorite Passage) |
LITR 4328 |
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Michael McDonald
Time Changes Everything
[31] There was, as usual, a crowd of
folk about the door, but none that Rip recollected. The very character of the
people seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it,
instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity.
[modernization] He looked in
vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his broad face, double chin, and fair
long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco-smoke instead of idle speeches; or Van
Bummel, the schoolmaster, doling forth the contents of an ancient newspaper. In
place of these, a lean, bilious-looking fellow, with his pockets full of
handbills, was haranguing vehemently about rights of citizens*—elections—members
of congress—liberty*—Bunker’s Hill*—heroes of seventy-six*—and other words,
which were a perfect Babylonish
[pun on Babel, as in Tower of Babel?]
jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle. [* = references to American
Revolution]
Rip Van Winkle returns to a familiar
place, yet her seems lost. He sees faces of people he has no recollection of and
they all stare back at him with the same uncertainty. His home once a quaint and
quiet village has become a bustling and busy town. He longs to find some kind of
familiarity in this place, but he can find none. He longs to see the faces of
his friends, but in their place find only more unfamiliarity.
The most prominent concept in this
passage, as noted, is that of modernization. This plays a large role in much of
Romanticism. Modernization often times combats with the desires of the romantic
narrative. Modernization directly combats with nature as civilization, like Rips
village, grows; nature dwindles.
Much like in Rip Van Winkle
modernization happens in our current era in an instant. For instance, the iPhone
is only eight years old. It took Rips’ village twenty years to grow to a point
that it was unfamiliar to him, and today in our society the original iPhone is
considered ancient. Simply put our society and culture is expanding at an
exponential rate, so much so that I believe if Rip Van Winkle were to fall
asleep in our present day and wake up twenty years in our future, the world
wouldn’t simply be unfamiliar, but almost entirely unrecognizable. Think of how
quickly things are built today and begin to reflect on how much the society that
you grew up in has changed.
Modernization appears to be a positive
in our society, but to look at it through romantic tinted lens we have almost
completely rejected the nature that we should embrace. This is why it is
important to note that Rip Van Winkle, though owning a farm, never tended to it
simply because he did not feel the connection with the land he was entrusted to
keep. So when the world became unfamiliar to him the one place that he longed to
return to was the very farm and land he neglected.
