What Happened Next in Rip Van Winkle ? :: Rip Van Winkle Essays

What Happened Next in Rip Van Winkle ? Rip Van Winkle acquired a belief the day he fell asleep---July 3, 1766, say---a belief that that day was a fine day. He held this belief under the character Today the day of this thought is nice. Then he slept for twenty years and two days, until July 5, 1786, and walked back to town. What happened next? The possibility that struck Kaplan and Evans is that Rip merely updated his belief. On July 3rd he never forms any open belief other than Today the day of this thought is a nice day. When he awakes on July 5th, the belief is updated, due to his sense of having slept through a night, and his lack of awareness of having slept twenty additinal years, to Yesterday the day before the day of this thought was a nice day. He fall out of epsitemic contact with the current day when he falls asleep, but has a ready-made character in mind for when he wakes up. But then what is there left of the original belief except the ludicrous one about July 4th? But the false belief can not be the true belief, so hasnt Rip muddled the belief in question? This seems to be the argument that threatened Kaplan and appealed to Evans. But even in the case of such thin updating, there are backup characters for Rip to tie down his belief under. When Rip believes, towards evening, as it grows dark, Today the day of this thought was a nice day, he has memories of seeing the flowers and feeling the sun, and so forth. So the character, That day the day I remember is or was a nice day is available to sustain his belief, when the attempt at updating goes awry. Even if these memories fade, there is the character, That day the day this belief was acquired is or was a nice day. So my view is this. When he awakes on July 5th, Rip updates his belief according to his view of how the context has changed. His view about the change of context is mistaken, and the modern character, Yesterday the day before the day of this thought was nice is not a way of bel ieving the original content. But that is no reason to say that Rip has lost his original belief.