Rip Van Winkle - A Fairy Tale In the short story "Rip Van Winkle", Washington Irving tells the story of a man who sleeps during the revolution. This story demonstrates two ways of looking at revolutionary history, one of myth and one of fact. The mythical representation wins, through popularity, over the factual representation. In the story, Rip Van Winkle wanders off into the mountains and meets some little men rolling bowling balls and drinking. Rip witnesses all this and joins them in drinking until he passes out. When he wakes up, everything has changed, the people, the city and himself. After telling his story, he becomes very popular among the townspeople, whereas before he was seen as lazy. The two characters who mainly represent the opposing sides are Rip and the man in the tricorn hat. The man with the tricorn hat represents the factual representation. Upon Rip's entry into town, the man asks him very direct questions and expects very direct answers. If someone had asked the man where he had been for the past twenty years, he would probably have told the story of the revolution and specific battles. He's not interested in stories, only facts. From his description, "the man in the tricorn hat", three quarters can also mean leadership. The man was a leader, or at least an authority at the time of Rip's return. Rip instead tells a story that resembles a fairy tale. It's about little men and drinking. Use symbols to represent the history of the revolution. The community prefers the fairy tale version to the facts. This is evident from Rip's growing popularity and common knowledge of his history. Irving writes, "and there was not a man, woman, or child in the neighborhood who knew it by heart" while "the presumptuous man in the cocked hat... tightened the corners of his mouth and shook his head - at that there was a general shaking of the head throughout the assembly." This shows that the community wants the revolution to look a certain way; they want it to be fun and symbolic, so Rip's version fits better. The citizens of the story may prefer a fairy tale, but this can be problematic. The symbols in Rip's story are so far removed from actual events that it's hard to tell what some of the symbols represent..