SOURCE: Richards, Henry J. “On the Plot Structure of ‘Rip Van Winkle’ and ‘Rip Rip.’” Romance Notes 21, no. 2 (1980): 138-44.

In the following essay, Richards applies Propp's principles of fairy tale analysis in comparing Irving's original story to Nájera's adaptation.

The subject matter of Washington Irving's “Rip Van Winkle” and that of Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera's “Rip Rip” are remarkably similar. No less striking, however, is the following disclaimer uttered by the narrator at the beginning of the Gutiérrez Nájera story: “¿De quién es la leyenda de Rip Rip? Entiendo que la recogió Washington Irving, para darle forma literaria en alguno de sus libros. … Pero no he leído el cuento del novelador e historiador norteamericano.”¹ Both the similarities that exist between them and the narrator's disclaimer in the story by the Mexican modernist writer invite comparative study of the two works, an effort...