In a twist of situational irony, Rip's homecoming as a newly-minted folk hero is a big let-down:
It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his own house, which he approached with silent awe, expecting every moment to hear the shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to decay[.]
Rip expects drama when he returns. He expects his wife to be waiting at home to berate him for staying out so long, but he finds out that she has not even waited up for him before dying. He is such an unremarkable hero that his once-loyal dog is indifferent to his reappearance:
A half-starved dog that looked like Wolf was skulking about [the house]. Rip called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This was an unkind cut indeed. “My very dog,” sighed poor Rip, “has forgotten me!”
Rip's 20-year hero's journey hasn't proven his worthiness or endurance, as it does for a well-known epic hero like Homer's Odysseus. Instead, it has solidified that he is lazy, forgettable, and the kind of person who doesn't contribute to building the future. The anticlimax of his return home humorously indicates that Rip is a different kind of hero. His ability to resist change so effectively that he sleeps through the revolution rather than fighting for a better world makes him the butt of the ironic joke, but it also makes him a figure of passive resistance and cultural stability.
