Sherwood Anderson's Egg

Sarah Costine 

Analysis of “The Egg”

 Sherwood Anderson is not considered a great American writer, but during his lifetime he was thought highly of and his work was generally admired by critics. It was only after his death that people became much more critical of his work, saying that he never actually grew as a writer, and that everything he wrote was the same. In the article “Sherwood Anderson’s triumph: ‘The Egg’” the author goes so far as to say that most of Anderson’s writings were really bad, and that “The Egg” was one of his extremely few good ones. In his autobiography even Anderson admits that “The Egg” was one of his favorite things he ever wrote. The author of the article, Michael D. West, believes that “The Egg” a very complicated story with many biblical and Freudian references that make the story a ‘tragicomedy’, the confusing mixture of emotions make the story easily relatable for anyone.

 The biblical references in “The Egg” are very subtle, and seem to focus on negative imageries. Anderson’s description of the chicken farm talks about the lives and deaths of the chickens as a never ending cycle that compares to the lives and deaths of humans as considered in the bible. He also writes “the flight from the chicken farm was a great and life changing event that one might right stories about”, much like the flight from Egypt. The boy and his family were escaping their old lives as slaves to the chicken farm, and running towards their bright and promising future. In the article analysis of “The Egg” West compares the story to that of Caine and Abel in the bible, saying that Kane’s rejection of the father’s hopes and dreams is “a re-enactment of Caine’s murder”.

West also believes that “The Egg” has a lot of Freudian theories in it. Anderson writes in his autobiography about the popularity of Freudian belief, and although he never read Freud’s work himself, he was constantly being exposed to it. Anderson writes about “The American Dream” like it is a grotesque and contagious disease. The story is told from the view of the child, and the child seems to have a disapproving, condescending view of his parents, much like in Freud’s work. Reading from the boy’s point of view makes the reader see the father as weak and stupid. Throughout the story the father works to provide for his family and to live up to his wife’s ambitious expectations. He could be respected for his determination to succeed, but instead we see him as a failure and at best, someone to be pitied. The boy continuously ridicules his father for being old and weak, and attempts to gain his mother’s affection over his father; he is the perfect Freudian son.

Whether or not Anderson himself can necessarily be considered a great American novelist, “The Egg” is still without a doubt, a remarkable piece of American literature. Using powerful imagery and metaphors Anderson succeeds in making the reader feel a confusing mixture of happiness and sadness. He makes the reader feel disgusted by the father, but at the same time, to pity him. In his article Michael D. West makes it very clear that “The Egg” is a story that everyone everywhere should be able to relate to. With the complications of emotions and mistakes that make us all human couldn’t everyone’s life story be considered a ‘tragicomedy’?

Works Cited

West, D. Michael. “Sherwood’s Triumph: ‘The Egg’”. American Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 4. John Hopkins University Press. Print.