The story of Rip Van Winkle is a tale about a man from a small Dutch village who basically spends more time tending to other people’s business than his own. He does this and neglects his own farm and family, in particular his nagging wife Dame Van Winkle. Who wouldn’t want to get away from that right? Rip goes off and somehow falls asleep for 20 years and sleeps through the American Revolution. When he goes back to his village nobody recognizes him and believes he’s a spy. He tells his story to the village and they all just think he’s crazy. His daughter comes out of the crowd and explains everything. Rip then finds out that his wife Dame passed away from popping a blood vessel. He then goes on to live with his daughter and her family. The moral of this story I believe teaches you to not take what you have for granted and appreciate it. Rip’s adventure he has can symbolize a fantasy and escape through imagination.
In the essay Self-Reliance, Emerson really goes on to say that relying on yourself and your own thoughts and ideas is the ideal thing to do. He claims that having your own mind and thoughts can classify you as being a genius. Emerson also uses famous ideal figures such as Christ to basically say that history’s greatest thinkers were outcasts for their first ideas.Me being a Disney fanatic I thought of “Hakuna Matata” from the Lion King. I felt that ultimately Emerson doesn’t want us to have any worries about what other people think of our ideas and to just be confident with what you feel.
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