"I was spellbound by its pleasant humor, its melancholy tenderness, and its atmosphere of revelry..."(Longfellow 310). This reaction to Washington Irving's short story "Rip Van Winkle" can be used to describe modern day America which has enshrined the story as a living figure head of the culture of America(Hoffman 630). The story has been produced on stage, told as oral tradition, and most importantly become a American legend by generations ("Democratic Origins and Revolutionary Writers, 1776-1820"). Hart Crane described the story of "Rip Van Winkle" as a muse of memory and a gardian angel of a trip to the past. In Webster's Dictionary, "The American Dream" is defined as an American citizen ideal of a happy and successful life to which all may aspire. Washington Irving's short story "Rip Van Winkle" has shown prime examples of the American Dream through it's beauty of land, oppurtunity, politics, and independent promise.