The protagonist of the story, Rip Van Winkle is a generous and good-natured man but is also lazy and irresponsible. He shows no interest in the military or in the political exploits of his illustrious ancestors, the Van Winkles, but instead falls back on being a beloved, happy-go-lucky sort in his village. Rip represents a dreamy escapist fantasy, an alternative to American frontier culture and to a society driven by capitalism. Rip is both figuratively, and then quite literally, a figure of bygone days, and a nostalgic reminder of simpler times.

With the character of Rip, Irving created a new model for the American hero. Even though Rip is profoundly unheroic, he undergoes the traditional hero’s journey: He leaves his world by venturing up into the mystical Catskills, encounters a mystical source of power in Henry Hudson and the crew of the Half Moon, and on his return from the otherworld, finds his own world much different than before. Nevertheless, unlike outsized and superpowered legends like Paul Bunyan or Davy Crockett, Rip is an everyday person with a nagging wife who avoids his domestic duties and doesn’t care about patriotism and politics.

This character has had a resounding impact on American culture, which features many fictional characters in the Rip mold: goofy but useless fathers with annoying wives, rarely present for their children or for their country.