Diedrich Knickerbocker, the scholar who narrates the central tale of "Rip Van Winkle," uses a metaphor to describe "henpecked" men like Rip, who submit to their wives' wills, as metal made softer and more workable in a blacksmith's forge:
Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation[.]
Knickerbocker contrasts the "pliant and malleable" Rip, who lets his wife and even his neighbors walk all over him, with the Van Winkles of Dutch military prestige. This metaphor is an instance of double-edged praise and criticism of Rip. Rip appears to be a genuinely good neighbor, but it's not only because he is a nice guy. Dame Van Winkle’s tyranny beats Rip into a hunk of metal ready to be shaped into anything at all. In short, he is a spineless people-pleaser. Knickerbocker refers to Rip as a "simple, good-natured man." "Simple," in this case, seems to mean not particularly bright. Whereas the Van Winkles in Rip's ancestry wielded weapons for a cause they believed in, Rip can be manipulated, like a weapon, to do others' bidding.
This metaphor is an example of the story's sexist satire of the British government as an overbearing wife. From a modern perspective, readers might be concerned that Rip is experiencing domestic abuse. Domestic power dynamics were a subject of critical debate in Irving's day just as they are today, but they were also a common source of humor because there was an even more rigid script for how domestic power ought to be structured. If anything, a husband was supposed to be the blacksmith, while a wife bent to his will. By reversing this dynamic through the metaphor of Dame Van Winkle's fiery furnace, Knickerbocker signals that Rip is doing something wrong, even if he is "good-natured."
The fact that Rip appears both virtuous and laughable at this moment is emblematic of Irving's ambivalence about the American Revolution. Like many of his contemporaries, Irving felt that the ideal citizen would be a self-possessed, enlightened thinker. This metaphor makes clear that Rip is not this ideal citizen. Rip's submission to his wife has made him too susceptible to others' influence to truly be free from tyranny should others take advantage of him. Nonetheless, communities full of people like Rip might be happier and freer from injustice than communities full of self-possessed military commanders constantly striving for conquest. Rip's passive escape from the fiery furnace of Dame Van Winkle's temper suggests that a more harmonious world might not require "simple" men like Rip to adopt a more modern, self-possessed mindset. Still, Knickerbocker, Crayon, Irving, and their imagined reader alike all look down on Rip as an example of an unenlightened person they could outwit.
