Final Post 7/30/09

My favorite reading of the whole semester would have to be the first one we read, "Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving. I found a lot of symbolism in it which made it very intriguing for me to read. I found that Rip Van Winkle represented America as it was just coming out from under the British's rule. I found Van Winkle's wife to represent Britain in that she seemed to rule Rip and once he comes back 20 years later from the mountains, she's dead and he's a new person (like America transforming from a set of colonies to an actual country). I thought this text had the most symbolism in it than any others we read. I would definitely recommend it to my friends, especially because it's not that long and my friends are big readers. I would definitely read it again because there may have been some stuff I missed that I would pick up a second or third time. I really understood what it was like to think outside the box when I read "Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving because of the conclusions I drew afterwards. It was a great, short read that I definitely recommend to anyone who's interested.