1.2 Literature Review

Critics now generally agree that Anderson is a significant figure in the transition time of American literature, and recognize him as a pioneer of modernism. It is reasonably clear that Anderson was an innovator, making breakthroughs, particularly in short fiction, in form, theme, style and characterization. 

Whenever the critics mention Anderson’s characters, there is no doubt that the word “grotesque” will come to their mind immediately. David D. Anderson, one of the famous critics of Anderson, pointed out that the Anderson’s greatest accomplishment was his definition for the word “grotesque”. As an excellent storyteller, Anderson seems to be preoccupied by a need to describe the plight of “grotesques”: the unsuccessful, the deprived and the inarticulate in the transitional period of America (Anderson, 1981: 1). The grotesque’s failure and frustration in their life has always been the theme of Anderson’s short stories as is the case of The Egg.

Numerous critics have made researches on The Egg and Anderson’s other works from different perspectives, such as the psychological analysis and the modernist aesthetics. Specificly, the previous criticism on The Egg mainly focus on the following aspects, that is, thematic analysis on the basis of biblical archetype criticism, characteristics of Anderson’s narration, techniques that Anderson adopts in his characterization.  来~自^751论+文.网www.751com.cn/

Chen (2010) in the paper “Biblical Archetype Criticism of Alienation in Anderson’s The Egg” indicates that The Egg by Sherwood Anderson subtly delineates the major theme of modern literature in the twentieth century – human alienation. Driven by American Dream, the protagonist, the father is alienated. Through interpretation in terms of biblical archetype criticism, the root of the father’s alienation can be traced – being estranged from the Garden of Eden, alienating the authority over material, and alienating the right of husband and wife. By returning to the right of husband and wife, the father is returning to his human nature.

Basset (1981) in “Anderson’s The Egg” indicates that the egg assumes associations beyond those of the culinary. For the father, farmer and restaurateur, eggs represent the concrete manifestation of his personal failures; for the narrator, truly the child of the father, eggs represent cosmic failure, that is, the futility of life itself. To Anderson and his narrator, the egg is a symbol of the maddeningly predictable, intractable, unpliable banality of the world, only expert magicians and cheats can triumph over it. 

Savin (1981) holds that the narrative structure is itself egg-like: within the shell of history lies a second and more vulnerable sphere, the fictions one creates about oneself and one’s genesis. The power of the egg resides not in impersonal memory, not in that outer shell, but in the revelation of the softer worlds of the imagination. Anderson, the architect of this doubled scheme, knows that the narrator’s story is in some ways unspeakable; its very importance prevents him from speaking of it directly. The story works by lodging the significant and implicit so neatly within the trivial and explicit that each accommodates and protects the other, a fertile center contained within a protective shell.