Free Essay On Sociology

The nature of the authorial ambivalence emerges when Irving writes out his concerns toward America. He seems to have contradicting feelings when he talks about his country celebrating the America revolution, and yet he ends up questioning it. In his literary work, Washington Irving has been considered from various historical perspectives. His narratives were read as a mythic escape from history. However, his work now is read as the irrevocable presence of history in America. But Irving’s tale encompasses a complicated and contradicting vision of history than has currently been recognized. Recovering some particular historical texts and contexts that endorse the first story in Irving’s Sketch Book, in the end, it threatens a superficial American subject. In addition, this was the era that the country was going transition in language and literature. And there was a common challenge in the development of several postcolonial literatures. Therefore, there was a need for a separate national language as the necessary basis for a different national literature.
Therefore, Irving is considered as ambivalent presentation of the American Revolution. This is a presentation that concurrently comprises a public celebration, a covert and intertextual critique of the revolution’s legacy. The critique is in the context of the two primary versions informing Irving’s story. Irving’s Salmagundi and a History of New York. The two texts discuss how Irving intertextually integrates several phrases and scenes into his tales with an aim of questioning the Revolution that he is openly celebrating. From a standpoint of view, authorial ambivalence in Rip Van Winkle is a significant concern for the young republic since they are the future leaders of United States. They need to be patriotic and not pretenders of love to their country. On the contrary, Irving’s contradictions contain some semantic importance since they ironically undermine the textual foundations of the American republic. According to Channing, this can be seen as failure to position the individual in the context based on native and oral. He suggests that individual must feel like foreigners in their language. This is because the language written should be in the vernacular tongue of the people who think their language is corrupted. Therefore, description of the literature that is constructed from language of another community can never be considered distinctive.
In the concept of individual, which is achieved when a person is a free human being with his/her values and protected by the universal declaration of human rights. Therefore, this binds the young republic together and makes them realize that individuality cannot change their perspectives of their patriotism. Irving was born in the year that America Revolution was ending. His parents were British, but he was an American subject as per individual. This could make him proud of being an American and preserve the country’s ideology. During that era, the nation was young, new and in many ways informed. This made the citizens not to understand what Revolution meant. But Irving utilized the opportunity by wrestling with this question in "Rip Van Winkle," by having his characters passionately debate political change on Election Day.
Critics have argued over Irving's standpoint since the story first narrated. In Rip Van Winkle, he implies that there is no big difference between King George and General Washington. He said it was simply a matter of same faces but difference clothing. He forgets that the presidency is an arm of government. Therefore, he uses the authorial ambivalence as a way of ignoring the independence of America. Unlike the literary work, Rip Van Winkle raises many question than it answers. Nevertheless, not all questions clearly have to do with the importance of the American Revolution.
In concept of individuality, Irving takes the Rip through the hero's stages of initiation. However, he does not let him return as a hero since accustomed composure, and drowsy tranquillity is not what America requires. Maybe Irving thinks the new country will prosper and mature without reliance of heroes. Irving put Rip into asleep for twenty years, and even the changes he found of state and empires made little impression on him. Therefore, Rip is not a hero who can propel the nation into the future. In other authorial ambivalence, Irving was ambivalent about the economic rationalization that was in America. What unites the various approaches to Irving and his rise of professional authorship sketched above, is the assumption of an unfriendly relationship between him and the market. That is a form of economic organization that began to educate and discipline the individual in America through an ideology of achieved identity in the Revolution era.
Irving’s works have similar content, but different concept from Robert Montgomery, introduces a character by the name Sheppard Lee. The character never truly gets satisfied with what he gets, he constantly wants something new and better. Robert writes literature of dark satire during the slave trade and its abolition. Robert uses the authorial ambivalence in the life of Squire Higginson, who was sentenced of being accused of murdering Lee. The allegation on him was for the fact that he was the only one who had been around Lee before his death. Robert has contradiction feelings towards Higginson since he introduced him as a hero, a rich man but later he turn to be a poor man. Likewise in the work of Irving, who introduce Rip like a hero but finally we realize that he cannot propel his country into its future.
Human beings are heartless and inappreciable according to Sheppard Lee.He is seen in a jovial mood at a particular time than previously when he wakes up. Being bedridden due to brutal injuries does not deny him the smiles on his face. He is happy due to Longstraw’s emotional soul and dedicates himself to charity duties and philanthropy. He becomes founder of many charity organizations as well as a servant to them all. He suddenly realizes that loving people is not such easy as previously said by masses. He becomes emotionally irritated when the people he decides to offer assistance beat him, rob him and do not appreciate his dedication to helping. Moreover, he forecasts becoming poor due to the finances he devotes to charity. His son, Abel loses the trust for his father because he steals the charity finances. Sheppard begins to wonder if he would ever find the happiness he had desired. Longstraw is abducted by slavers and deported to Virginia to be murdered as an abolitionist. He soon finds out that Abel sold him to the slavers. When longstraw was about to be murdered, the executor fell and collapsed. Sheppard Lee successfully enters the executor’s body, and the masses get him.

Works cited

Blakemore, Steven. "Family Resemblances: The Texts and Contexts of" Rip Van Winkle"." Early American Literature (2000): 187-212.