It has been so long since I finished my assignment a few years ago. Now, I am experiencing the good old days as a student. The job for me is really so difficult and it costs me a couple of days to finish. However, I make it. Cool!

The Triumph of the Egg                        

To begin with, the plot of the novella falls on three parts. First and foremost, it tells us that a cheerful and kind-hearted man who used to be a farmhand living a simple and happy life just as his peers in the country when he is single. However, everything turns out to be so different when he gets married with an ambitious country school teacher who boasts great expectations and inspirations and she intends to realize the dream to be a relatively rich. With his wife’s inspiration and encouraging, he works hard by raising chicken but fails at last. The failure in the business dives the story to a higher-lever with the whole family’s move to a new place, a town where a train station is located. He ambitiously tries his hand on running the so-called restaurant according to his wife’s direction. The movement into a relatively modern word foreshadows the conflict between his outdated thinking with the modernization. The business does not go well, and he makes an idea of how to reverse the situation by entertaining the consumers. The climax reaches when he fails to amuse the young fellow in a raining night.

In the fiction, Anderson employs different symbols to refreshes us and gives us diversified images and in-depth understanding of one’s position and identity in the modern society. The crowning symbolic feature is the egg, which should be regarded as the most vivid depiction of American Dream. It is that the spirit of that dream spurs the grass-root to gain wealth, recognition and identity so as to realize the value of life. The business of chicken-raising and restaurant-running are the exact method and way to make the dream come true. Through the pilgrimage towards the dream, the egg servers as the output of his first business; for the second one, the dynamic character is supposed to win his success by playing a trick with the egg. However, he fails. We see clearly the essence of dual image of the egg or American dream hope carrier and destroyer. Further more, the different places and whereabouts serve as symbolic image in the short story. The poor stony land and the movement to Pickleville stand for the unrecoverable failure and dreaming to become a member of the modern world. We also see the train, running business as the coming of industrialization and modernization. Hence, we get to know that the outdated and traditional way of life is inevitably replaced by the modern institution. The raining night also foreshadows and symbols that outcome. 

As far as the character is concerned, father of the narrator, destroyed and depressed farmer-turned-businessman, is a typical round character of the novelette. Originally, he is just an ordinary country man without lofting ambition and enjoys his simple and sound bachelor life. Hence, his marriage serves as a turning point for his changing and revelation. He confidently starts his upward journey but meets his first failure-chicken raising in the country. The hard work and investment gain nothing but the lost. However, when he and the family settle down in Pickleville, he is determined to change and brave the twists and turns ahead. The protagonist gains the American spirit and becomes progressive. He takes it for granted that he will be successful by entertaining the consumer, to be specifically, Joe Kane, son of a merchant of Bidwell.

To his astonishment and surprise, he is totally wrong, what he is doing proves to be so funny, ridiculous and nothing joyful in the eyes of the young. Depression and disillusion prevails the former sense of becoming success.

Ironies here and there in the short story play an irreplaceable role to highlight the theme. Firstly, we know that man in that society shoulders the responsibility to support the family and is expected to be ambitious. The father in the short story is exactly the opposite. It is the narrator’s mother who gets the idea but she doesn’t realize it. The second irony lies in the narrator’s mother who does not have hope for his husband but for her son who will become a town people. The third and the most significant irony is that the diligent and progressive family does not receive what they expect. Their traditional way of thinking and doing business can not match the development of the industrialization progress.  

Now, as regards theme of this story, the author mainly lampoons American Dream and the destructive forces of industrialization and modernization upon tradition. The narrator’s family is one of the ingredients of the lower class and they are looking forward to rising in the world and making their dream come true. The narrator’s parents work hard and diligently in an attempt to make a better living and gain the position. The business they run ends up with failure which could be attributed to the power of industrialization and modernization. That power destroys the traditional way of life, while people are still in the tradition. The conflict between the two is generates trouble and uncertainties to those who could not handle it well.