美国文学-瑞普_凡_温克尔夫人形象解析

Analyze the character of Dame Van Winkle and discuss her function as a villain. Dose the story carry sexual prejudice?Dame Van Winkle is described as a captious, man-eating woman who always scolds her husband in this story. But for me, Mrs. Winkle is a brave laborious woman As a villain, she makes Rip Van Winkles image of a “simple, good-natured man” more clear, and she is the carrier of the prejudice of women in that society. So in my opinion this story does carry sexual prejudice. Dame van winkle is a typical hellcat according to the description in the story. She always taxes with her husband volubly and acting very shrewish. Form the description of Rip as “a kind neighbor, and a husband who obeyed his wife” in the beginning if the story, we can see that in rips family, the person who role the roast is Dame Van Winkle and she controls her husband with her power. With this description, our first expression of Mrs. Winkle is that she is a domineering woman. When we read the sentence:” her tongue was endlessly going. Everything he said or did was sure to produce more angry talk.” we can get the image that Dame Van winkle is sharp-tongued and fractious. As the development of the plot, the author portrayed a picture that Mrs. Winkle break into the club to blame all the people about their worthlessness and idleness. After reading all these evidence above, it is easy for us to build up the expression that dame van winkle is a really virago in the small village. But if we read deeply into the story we can find that this kind of image is carrying a lot of prejudice. Mrs. Winkle is a special woman and she is brave and hardworking. The story tells us that rip is a kind and easy-going man, when his wife blames him, he never talk back. At the same time, the author also write that “Rip Van Winkle had one great fault; he disliked-indeed, he hated-any kind of profitable labour.” The condition of his farm is worse than any of his neighbors but rip is still wondering in the woods or lazing away with the people in the club instead of doing farm work. It means that as a man who should work and earn money to support his family, rip is a total failure. Then we will ask who is working to take care of the family? Of cause the answer is dame van winkle. Since the husband never takes his responsibility, the wife has to go out working like a man, do the entire house work and bring up the children. In the story when rip got back to his village, there is a sentence: “He entered the ruins of the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van Winkle had always kept in good order.” This means that Mrs. Winkle is a good housewife. Dame Van winkle is fractious and captious, but she has to be such a virago because her husband is a dawdler who never takes his responsibility. In the years that are described in the story, all the judgments about women are made by the men. A man who is always wondering and chatting with others can be forgiven and accepted by the public, but a woman who is brave to point out the worthlessness and idleness of men will be called a virago and the public will turn its back on her. From the story we can see that the people in Rips village are described as:” Whenever they discussed the Van Winkle family's quarrels, they always decided that Dame Van Winkle was wrong.” And there are a lot of fainéant in the village, especially in the inn and these peoples wives must have compliant, but these women just choose to keep silent and comply. Only Dame Van Winkle has the courage to speak out. She not only blames her own husband but also censures the people who always connive these pokes. To my way of thinking, dame van winkle is a brave woman who is not afraid of speaking out her compliant in the patriarchal society. As a villain, Mrs. Winkles negative image helps the author to make Rip as the victim of a terrible wife. At the beginning of the story the author described Rip as a nice, easy-going man and everyone in the village likes him except of his wife. He is scolded often by often but never dare to fight back. The worse Mrs. Winkle is described, the pitiful Rip is considered. By this way, the story successfully convinced the readers to believe that a good woman should be quiet and submissive; they should never challenge the domination of men. Mrs. Winkle is a good carrier of the negative opinion of a powerful and brave woman that was hold by men.This story dose carries the sexual prejudice of women. First, the name of Mrs. Winkle is ironical. The word “dame” is a title for noble women but Mrs. Winkle is just a countrywoman who has no connection with a noble woman. The author here is using this word to show his sarcasm of women. Second, the reason for us to take Mrs. Winkle as a virago is that the adjectives and sentences that used by the author to describe Dame Van Winkle are all negative. Such as “what dog is ever brave enough to stand firm against the terrors of a woman's tongue?” and “Morning, noon, and night, her tongue was endlessly going.” Thirdly, the author never tries to describe details about Mrs. Winkle or any other women in this story. We only know her name and her typical image is a virago. This shows the authors attitude towards women: ignore and depreciate. The same attitude can be seen from the depiction of Mrs. Winkles death:” She broke a blood vessel in anger at a man who came selling things at our door." This cause of death for Dame Van Winkle is like a joke, while at the end Rip gets a family and becomes the respectful old man in the village, his story is told once by once. With these evidences above we can see that the story carries sexual prejudice. As a conclusion, Dame Van Winkle is a brave, hardworking and respectful woman; she is described as a virago because the author wanted to show the readers the rule for women in the patriarchal society. So the story obviously has sexual prejudice.