(Originally written for ENG 201, Environmental Literature, for Dr. Jim Watkins, Spring 2020.)
(Buck Ridge Lookout, Catskills. Photo by Daniel Case, 10 Oct. 2016, Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0.)
In his 1995 essay “The Trouble with Wilderness,” environmental historian William Cronon traces the formation of the American ideal of wilderness, which underpins the present-day environmental movement. Cronon identifies “the frontier myth,” a set of values emphasizing primitivism, nostalgia, patriotism, and a male-centric perspective, as a shaping force in the American view of wilderness since the early beginnings of the nation. One piece of literature that exemplifies many of the attributes of Cronon’s frontier myth is the legend of “Rip Van Winkle.” Published by writer Washington Irving in 1819, the folktale follows Rip Van Winkle, an inhabitant of a small pre-revolution Dutch town. Over the course of the story, Rip ventures into the nearby Catskill mountains, where he shares mead with a group of mountain giants, passes out, and wakes up to find that he has been asleep for 20 years. While fantastical in nature, this popular folktale illuminates the roots of the American perspective on wilderness and provides a lens through which to examine contemporary notions of wilderness and the frontiersman. Rip Van Winkle’s journey typifies several key attributes of Cronon’s frontier myth, including an emphasis on primitivism, nostalgia for the past, and a male-centric view of wilderness. However, “Rip Van Winkle” negates Cronon’s claim that the frontier myth is intertwined with American patriotism and national identity, because Rip shows a total lack of interest in American politics and nation formation throughout the story, suggesting instead that the true frontiersman is aloof from overly-civilized institutions like politics. The frontier myth as expressed by stories like “Rip Van Winkle” has shaped perceptions of nature and environmentalism by assuming a separation between human civilization and nature that could ultimately blind American environmentalism to the reality that humans and nature are intertwined and mutually influential.
Cronon credits the frontier myth with being one of the forces, along with the sublime, that facilitated the conversion of wilderness as “Satan’s home” to “God’s own temple” in the minds of Americans (Cronon 72). The frontier myth is a concept that runs through American folklore and literature, described by historian Frederick Jackson Turner as the source of American national identity (Cronon 76). By inspiring independence and bringing a person back to their primitive roots, the idea goes, the wilderness of the frontier gives frontiersmen the force of person to leave the confining comforts of civilization and pursue the higher ideals of American democracy and rugged individualism. The frontier myth also has heavily gendered undertones. Cronon notes that frontiersmen are almost always male, and the frontier wilderness is portrayed as a male space that offers escape from feminizing, emasculating civilization (Cronon 78).
The first foundational component of the frontier myth is primitivism, which Cronon calls the “belief that the best antidote to the ills of an overly refined and civilized modern world was a return to simpler, more primitive living” (Cronon 76). Rip Van Winkle’s character embraces primitivism as one of his key personality traits. Throughout the story, he shows little interest in even the most basic trappings of civilization, like hygiene or productive labor. The author informs us, “His fences were continually falling to pieces; his cow would either go astray, or get among the cabbages [...] his children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged to nobody” (Irving 8). The true evidence of the frontier myth at work, though, is that the storyteller presents Rip’s disinterest with productive society as a positive trait that makes him likeable and earns him popularity. Rather than criticize Rip, as his wife does in the story, for neglecting legitimate demands on his time, the author good-naturedly explains that Rip “was one of those happy mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who [...] would rather starve on a penny than work for a pound” (Irving 10). In fact, instead of listening to his wife’s demands, Rip simply takes his gun and dog and escapes into the forest for long hunts (Irving 15). Rip epitomizes the primitivism of the frontier myth, because his solution to the difficulties of civilization is to simply ignore them and escape to the wilderness, a trait which ultimately leads him to success as the story progresses.
(Above: Washington Irving Memorial. Image from Beyond My Ken, 9 Aug. 2016, Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0.)
Cronon points out that the frontier myth often either ignores women or strains against their presence as a bastion of civilization, and the story of “Rip Van Winkle” supports his claim. The frontiersman was, as the word suggests, typically a man. Furthermore, Cronon explains that civilized society “threatened his masculinity,” which is why a true frontiersman must escape to nature, where he can reclaim his masculinity (Cronon 78). This theme is featured prominently in Rip Van Winkle’s story. At the outset, Rip was “an obedient hen-pecked husband” (Irving 5). In fact, civilization in the form of his wife’s lectures had emasculated Rip so completely that he simply “shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said nothing,” unable to muster up a response (Irving 10). Once Rip escapes into the wilderness of the Catskills, the story takes on a very different tone. Rip stumbles upon a group of (ostensibly male) giants who are drinking beer and bowling (Irving 22). This scene is remarkably reminiscent of having a “beer with the guys,” a time-honored male tradition in American culture. Rip has effectively escaped the feminizing clutches of civilization to go spend time in the wilderness with male company and reclaim his masculinity through the trials of sport and drink. Rip’s reclamation of his masculinity, with the help of the frontier, is so complete that when he re-enters society, his wife has actually died. However, rather than mourn the death of a loved one, Rip and the narrator both celebrate Rip’s liberation from the “petticoat government” (Irving 60), because it means that Rip is finally free to live a primitive, masculine, frontiersman life.
The story of “Rip Van Winkle” gains a lot of its charm from nostalgia for a timeless past in the wilderness, while expressing misgivings about the more modern future of the colonies. Cronon states, “Those who have celebrated the frontier have almost always looked backwards as they did so, mourning an older, simpler, truer world that is about to disappear forever” (Cronon 76). This is certainly true for Rip, as his adventure with the giants is pervaded by a sense of nostalgia for a distant and fleeting past. Rip notices that the giants are wearing old Dutch fashions that remind him “of the figures in an old Flemish painting [...] which had been brought over from Holland at the time of the settlement” (Irving 20). The combination of the fantastical giants wearing old fashions and an unlikely wilderness setting gives the scene a sense of ancientness and nostalgia. This quaint scene is set in contrast to what awaits Rip when he returns to civilization and finds that his old Dutch village has been transformed into a patriotic American frontier town by the American Revolution. In this case, the time Rip spends in the mountains with the giants serves as a refuge of antiquity from the disconcerting changes that are about to visit his community.
(The Return of Rip Van Winkle, by John Quidor, 1849, Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under Creative Commons CCO 1.0 Universal.)
Rip Van Winkle exemplifies the preceding traits of the frontier myth, but he diverges in one key way. Cronon states that the frontier myth is deeply entwined with American patriotism and the founding of the nation (Cronon 76). However, Rip shows a complete lack of interest in politics and America’s founding, instead presenting a picture of the frontiersman as one who has so effectively transcended civilization that national identity means little or nothing to him at all. Cronon calls the frontier “the quintessential location for experiencing what it meant to be an American” (Cronon 76). However, the story of “Rip Van Winkle” shows just the opposite. When Rip leaves the frontier, he emerges into a post-revolution world where the colonies have been transformed into the United States of America. While Rip is confused by the political changes at first, he shows a remarkable lack of interest in the details of the nation once he has found his footing. This is demonstrated when he sees the place where a picture of King George used to hang: “He recognized on the sign, however, the ruby face of King George [...] the red coat was changed for one of blue and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a sceptre, the head was decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was painted in large characters, GENERAL WASHINGTON” (Irving 32). Rip recognizes that there has been a change by the figure’s coat and sword, but he recognizes no difference between the “ruby face” of King George and that of George Washington. This suggests that while the superficial trappings of a government might change, it is all the same underneath to Rip. Rip cares very little about what these superficial changes to his country might be, as long as he can continue to live his laid-back lifestyle.
By most accounts, Rip Van Winkle is the epitome of Cronon’s frontiersman. He revels in a simple lifestyle and needs very little besides open forest to be happy. He strains against the domestic confines of civilization and femininity. He finds success in his life because he is able to escape into the wilderness and experience a magical, nostalgic night with giants rooted in the old traditions of Dutch colonies. These founding characteristics of the frontier myth—primitivism, male-centrism, and nostalgia—still influence how Americans perceive wilderness today by necessitating that wilderness be considered fundamentally separate from human civilization. We separate ourselves from wilderness by assigning it to the domain of national parks and state forests—places where the past is romanticized and venerated through historical markers, where campgrounds are designed for people to escape civilization and play at primitive life. While the frontiersman perspective has prompted us to protect many important natural habitats, it also blinds us to the reality that we are not truly separate from nature, but a constituent part of it (Clark, 2014). The next evolution for American environmentalism is to look beyond the false dichotomies of “wild” and “civilized” set forth by stories like “Rip Van Winkle” and come to grips with the far more complex, nuanced relationship between humans and nature.
Works Cited
Clark, Timothy. “Nature, Post Nature.” The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the
Environment, edited by Louise Westling, Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 75-
89.
Cronon, William. “The Trouble with Wilderness.” Out of the Woods, 1997, pp. 28-50. JSTOR,
doi:10.2307/j.ctt7zw9qw.8.
Webster, George P., and Washington Irving. Rip Van Winkle. Applewood Books, 2012.