the egg 赏析

Name: 徐璐 Number: 12010011056 c班英语小说选读Teacher:刘亚娜Date: 2012-12-30The egg“The egg” was written by Sherwood Anderson, an American writer. He chose a little boy as the narrator. In my opinion, the author wants to make readers think deeply and to dig out the theme of story. The tale is talking about struggle of sad history of a couple. At the beginning, father works as a farmhand. When he was thirty-fifty, he married a woman. After their only child born, “they become ambitious”. “Mother induce father to give up his place and embark on an independent enterprise of his own.”chicken raising. It failed. But they did not give up. They began another. “They moved to the town of Bedwill, Ohio, and embarked in the restaurant business.” It still failed. In this story, symbolism is obviously important element. The egg has a variety of meanings. Next, I am going to analyze symbolism and characters, trying to figure out the purpose of this short story.This story is told by a boy. On his point of view, he saw a world which different from adult had seen. At first, his father, boy said, was a cheerful and kindly man by nature. He worked as a farmhand, quite happy in his position in life. But his mother was quite ambitious for his father and himself. On the narrators part, because his parents were busy charging their chicken farm and take less care of him. Then “he became a gloomy man inclined to seethe darker side of life.” The egg here stands for a thief. As far as I am concerned, child should be nave and puerile when he was young. He should enjoy his careless childhood. Nevertheless, the thief was just breaking into boys life and disturbing his childhood, stealing away nature of boy and making him become premature. The boy found that “chicken eats quantities of corn and meal bought by the sweat of fathers brow, gets diseases, stands looking with stupid eyes at the sun, become sick and dies.” Father did not harvest anything but wasted his money and effort. So the egg not only steals boy happiness, but also rob father treasure. Because father was a cheerful, kindly man” before, he was in order to achieve a better life for his child. And he found another job. The situation of family, however, was not change and got worse. The egg has other symbolism. It is parasite which just gets what they need and take everything from its owner. The reason is that father devoted himself to his chicken, such as time, energy and money. The truth is that the egg is always taking but never gives. They wasted father money, and took away his hope. Now he gained nothing but “dreadful cycle”. “Thus this family gave up struggle and began another.” During the journey of moving house, child recalled the life of farm, observing his father. Child found his “father had become habitually silent and discouraged”. His father suffered a lot from the egg. He consisted on fighting with the egg. So the egg symbolizes the destiny. People keeps struggling when they alive. But sometime the fate watch the stupid people struggle and mock at them. Father protected his greatest treasuregrotsques throughout a journey. Here, grotesques symbolic meaning to predict his dream would not happen and tell the reader father was mad. Fathers behavior seems defend our destiny against invasion carefully. They rented an empty store building as a restaurant opposite the railroad station. Mother selected this place so as to send her boy into a town and became a man of the towns one day. She pin her hopes on him. Father still put expectation on the egg. He wondered if he adopts “a cheerful outlook on life”. And he also dreamed of entertaining their gusts whether there is an opportunity. He never abandons the chance of controlling the egg as he wants to keep the destiny under the control. One day in the evening, there was rare chance which a gust came to visit. Father wouldnt, of course, let such a perfect opportunity slip away. Then father exhibited the grotsques. But “his visitor was made a little ill by the sight if the body of terribly deformed bird floating in the alcohol in the bottle and got up to go.” Father began to do a trick with an egg and wanted to catch visitor attention. It failed. Visitor laughed at him and thought he was mildly insane and harmless. At last, father lost face and reputation. The egg won. Father lost the fate and he sadly admitted. After I had read the short story, I feel sympathetic for the father and child. They are made fool of the egg. In addition, the egg stand for American dream. Because the experience of the author make him raise a deeply thought, and to pick up his