Literature has been shaped by the culture of the people; their hopes and dreams, their struggles in life and love, and their ability to overcome obstacles. It characterizes the ambition and deepest desires of a group of people, their goal of achieving success and overturning their worst fears. As Karen Hunter writes in her biography, Joseph Campbell, he wrote a theory about the predictability of story plots that include a "hero", called A Hero's Journey, "A… Monomyth, a term originally developed by the author James Joyce. He defined a monomyth as “…a universal heroic pattern reproduced in all cultures and in all individual lives.” This monomyth would influence the way people examine literary works, such as Rip Van Winkle, which can be compared to the Hero's Journey framework and would impact the way people view heroes. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay. Rip Van Winkle begins with predictable setting and character development. Rip is described as “a simple, good-natured man; he was furthermore a sort of neighbor, and an obedient and piqued husband,” overall giving the impression that he is someone with whom readers can easily identify. He lives in a small ancient town that has "the houses of the first settlers standing a few years later, with latticed windows, gabled facades...and built with small yellow bricks brought from Holland", a setting that readers associate with to a normal life. This supports the idea highlighted by Kathee Jones in her article "An Exploration of Personality Development through Mythical Narratives", stating that the "hero" begins his journey with his "...biological endowments: talents, disabilities, interests , desires, and habits. The hero's ordinary world is a place of social certainty, where expectations are known and respected. The details of Irving's story lead the reader to believe that Rip Van Winkle is a simple man living in a quiet, average town, where few turbulent events occur, which is consistent with how Campbell described the hero's journey. As the plot followed the foundation of the hero's journey, readers can predict a change in the focus of the story. After being introduced to Rip's character and his surroundings, the setting and intensity of the story changes as he leaves town. This happens because Rip's wife yelled at all his friends for encouraging him to sit in a bar and smoke, which was so embarrassing and infuriating that he was looking to "escape farm work and to the clamors of his wife. take a gun in your hand and walk away into the woods.” This sets a scene where Rip is troubled after having a conflict with his wife and walks away from her by going into the woods, introducing a new setting unfamiliar to the reader. According to Jones, this would perfectly involve the classic hero's journey in which "...a foreshadowing event or character reveals other possibilities and the hero's spiritual center shifts into the unknown." Due to the remoteness of the native areas, the atmosphere of the story slowly builds to the climax in Rip Van Winkle, as predicted by the monomyth. After helping a stranger with a barrel climb a nearby mountain, Rip indulges in the contents of the barrel, where he falls asleep surrounded by strange men who do not speak: a difficult situation in which few people find themselves. He wakes up to find himself with no dog, no gun, or no explanation for his wife chasing him, a situation that understandably disturbs him. However,when he finds his way back to town, his wife is not a major problem. He observed that "the village itself seemed altered...there were rows of houses he had never seen before and those which were his familiar haunts were gone", he was completely confused and frightened. He went to the building that was his old friend's bar, but turned on him as soon as he walked in and said, "...they changed my gun, and everything changed, and I'm changed, and I can't say what my name is, or who I am! These extracts from the text show Rip in a very difficult position; he doesn't know what happened to his stuff, how to explain things to his wife and when he finally gets to town, and nothing makes sense. At this point, he is on the verge of a breakdown in the middle of a crowded bar, leading readers to infer that this is the climax of the story, due to the increasingly trying situation in where Rip is. According to the Hero's Journey guidelines outlined by Jones, this would be appropriate because "in the Special World, the hero goes through a series of trials", in the second element of the journey, "initiation". Rip has lost everything that was meaningful to him, and he's faced with the problem of where to go now that his old town is distorted. However, it also skips several steps in the setup predicted by Jones when she said: "Often a hero must undergo a test of character to cross the threshold back to the ordinary world, thereby demonstrating his or her commitment to completing the journey." Rip Van Winkle doesn't entirely comply with the Hero's Journey, as he is technically back at the original location, but he is unrecognizable in every way. He has no place here, which absolutely contrasts with the setting described at the beginning of the story. Additionally, this is depicted in the "Return" phase of the hero's journey, which is supposed to take place after "initiation" (the conflict section), but in Rip's situation, it is the most difficult ordeal. difficult he must face. Unfortunately, after asking the people at the bar about his friends and family, he discovers that many of them have died or disappeared due to the civil war. As a result of all this new loss, "Rip's heart was extinguished on learning of these sad changes in his home and friends, and thus finding himself alone in the world." However, upon discovering the melancholy fate of his friends, Rip manages to find his path to happiness when he finds his long-lost daughter who is ready to welcome him. He then discovers the legend of the Kaatskill Mountains, which provides clarification that his serious predicament occurred because he climbed to the top of a mountain with the strange man. Peter Vanderdonk, a descendant of the historian who wrote about the province in its early days, revealed: "It was a fact, passed down from his ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill Mountains had always been haunted by strange beings ". They had put him to sleep for 20 years, leading Rip to miss the war in which he was unknowingly separated from his loved ones. While these details were sad to learn and accept, they also provided the clarification Rip I was waiting to find. Jones says: "Heroes are challenged to combine knowledge of the special world with the realities of ordinary life, thereby becoming the master of two worlds", and this concludes that often there is not always a completely happy ending upon returning to the original world in the hero's journey. However, in the case of Rip Van Winkle, it was comforting for readers to learn that he was finally reunited with his daughter and was able to return to his usual routines. After all this chaos for a man presented as simple and kind, he..