Literature has been shaped by people's culture; their hopes and dreams, their battles in life and love, and their ability to overcome obstacles. It characterizes the ambition and deepest desires of a group of people, their goal of success and overcoming their worst fears. As written by Karen Hunter in her biography, Joseph Campbell, wrote a theory about the predictability of story plots that include a 'hero', called A Hero's Journey, "A... Monomyth, a term originally developed by author James Joyce ". He defined a monomyth as "...a universal heroic pattern replicated across cultures and individual lives." This monomyth would influence how people examine literary works, such as Rip Van Winkle, which can be compared to the Hero's Journey painting and would influence how people view heroes. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Rip Van Winkle begins with predictable development of the setting and characters. Rip is described as “a simple, good-natured man; he was also a kind of neighbor and an obedient, tormented husband,” overall giving the impression that he is someone readers can easily identify with. He lives in an old town that has "homes of the original settlers standing within a few years, with lattice windows, gabled facades... and built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland," an environment that readers associate to normal lives. This supports the idea that Kathee Jones highlighted in her article “An exploration of personality development through mythical narratives”, stating that the “hero” begins his journey with his “…biological endowments: talents, disabilities , interests, desires, and habits. The hero's ordinary world is a place of social certainty, where expectations are known and followed.” The details of Irving's story lead the reader to believe that Rip Van Winkle is a simple man who lives in a quiet, normal town, where few turbulent events occur, which is the same with which Campbell plotted the Hero's Journey Since the plot followed the foundation of the Hero's Journey, readers can expect a change in emphasis of the story. After getting to know Rip's character and his surroundings, the setting and intensity of the story changes as he leaves town. This happens because Rip's wife scolded all his friends for having him encouraged to sit in a bar and smoke, which was so embarrassing and infuriating that he tried, "to escape the work of the farm and the fuss of his wife, was to take the gun in his hand and go for a walk in the woods". This sets up a scene where Rip is upset after being in conflict with his wife, and he distances himself from her by going into the woods, introducing a new setting that is unfamiliar to the reader. According to Jones, this would perfectly imply the classic Hero's Journey where "...an event or heralding character reveals other possibilities and the hero's spiritual center shifts into the unknown." Due to the move away from the native areas, the atmosphere of the story slowly culminates towards the climax in Rip Van Winkle, as predicted by the monomyth. After helping a stranger with a barrel climb a nearby mountain, Rip abandons himself to the contents of the barrel, where he falls asleep surrounded by strange men who do not speak - a difficult situation not many find themselves in. He wakes up to find himself without a dog, a gun, or an explanation for his wife stalking him, a situation that makes him understandably unnerved. However, when he returns to town, his wife is no longer aits considerable problem. He observed that "the village itself seemed altered... there were rows of houses he had never seen before and what had been his familiar haunts had disappeared", he was completely confused and frightened. He went to the building that was his old friend's bar, but as soon as he entered he turned on him and said: "... 'they changed my gun, and everything changed, and I changed, and I don't know my name anymore , nor who I am!”' These excerpts from the text show Rip in a very difficult position; he doesn't know what happened to his things, how to explain things to his wife and when he finally arrives in town, nothing makes sense , is on the verge of a nervous breakdown in the middle of a crowded bar, leading readers to infer that this is the climax of the story, due to the increasingly difficult situation Rip has found himself in of the Hero's Journey that Jones described, this would fit because, “In the special world, the hero struggles through a series of trials,” in the second element of the journey, 'Initiation' him and is faced with the problem of finding where to go now that his old city is warped. However, this also skips several steps in the pattern envisioned by Jones when he said, "Often a hero must undergo a test of character to cross the threshold back to the ordinary world, showing commitment to completing the journey." Rip Van Winkle doesn't quite conform to the Hero's Journey, as he's technically back in his original location, but he's unrecognizable in every way. There is no place for him here, which is in absolute contrast to the setting described at the beginning of the story. Furthermore, this is described in the "Return" phase of the Hero's Journey, which is supposed to happen after the "Initiation" (the conflict section), but in Rip's situation, this is the most difficult test he faces. After asking the people at the bar about his friends and family, he discovers that many of them are dead or missing due to the civil war. As a result of all this new loss, "Rip's heart went out to hear of these sad changes in his home and friends, and to find himself thus alone in the world." However, by discovering the melancholy fate of his friends, Rip is able to find his way to happiness when he finds his long-lost daughter who is willing to take him in. He then learns about the legend of the Kaatskill Mountains, which provides clarification that his grave situation occurred because he climbed to the top of a mountain with the strange man. Peter Vanderdonk, a descendant of the historian who had written about the province in its early stages, revealed, "it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill Mountains had always been haunted by strange beings." They had put him to sleep for 20 years, which consequently led to Rip missing the war in which he was unknowingly separated from his loved ones. While these details were painful to learn and have to accept, they also provided the clarification that Rip had been waiting to find. Jones says, "Heroes are challenged to unite knowledge of the special world with the realities of ordinary life, becoming masters of two worlds," and this concludes that there is often not always a happy ending in returning to the original world in the journey of the hero. However, in the case of Rip Van Winkle, it was heartwarming for readers to discover that he was eventually reunited with his daughter and was able to resume his usual routine. After all this chaos, for a man shown as simple and kind, he was able to overcome the pain and difficulties to "[make] friends among the rising generation, with whom he soon became a great favour" and had "cut off his neck" out of the yoke of marriage, and could come and go.