摘要舍伍德•安德森是二十世纪初一位重要的美国作家。《鸡蛋》作为安德森最佳的短篇小说之一，颇具象征意味。本文试图在前人研究的基础上，从象征zhuyi的角度，分析作品中所采用的象征手法，包括中心意象“鸡蛋”的多重象征意义以及主要人物形象父亲的象征意义,并通过这些象征的分析来阐释小说中父亲悲剧命运的成因。67358

毕业论文关键词  《鸡蛋》  象征zhuyi   畸形人物    

毕 业 论 文 外 文 摘 要

Title  A Study of Symbolism in Sherwood Anderson’s The Egg

Abstract 

Sherwood Anderson is an important American novelist and short-story writer of the early twentieth century. The Egg, one of Sherwood Anderson’s best short stories, is highly symbolic. The thesis attempts to analyze the use of symbolism in the work, including the various symbolic meanings of the central image, the egg and the main character, the father, and causes of the tragedy of the father.

Keywords   The Egg  Symbolism  Grotesque Character  

Table of Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Anderson and The Egg 1

1.2 Literature Review 2

1.3 Symbolism 4

1.4 Thesis structure 4

2 The Symbolic Meaning of the Egg. 5

2.1. The American Dream 5

2.2. The Fate 8

3 The Symbolic Meaning of the The father – The Symbol of Grotesque 10

Conclusion 13

Acknowledgements 14

Bibliography 15

1. Introduction

1.1 Anderson and The Egg

Sherwood Anderson was born in Camden, Ohio in 1876. He left school at 14 and after various jobs served in the Spanish-American War. After leaving the US Army, he became a successful advertising man and later a manager of a paint factory in Elyria, Ohio. Dissatisfied with his life, however, Anderson abandoned both his job and his family and went to Chicago to become a writer.

In 1916, Anderson published his first novel Windy McPherson’s Son and Marching Men the next year. But his real success came when he published Winesburg, Ohio in 1919. This collection of short stories was an immediate success and contributed to his distinctive position in American literature. He later wrote more short stories and published collections such as The Triumph of the Egg (1921), Horses and Men (1923), and Death in the Woods (1933); and novels like Poor White (1920), Many Marriages (1923), Dark Laughter (1925) and Kit Brandon (1936).

As a novelist and short story writer, Anderson had a profound influence on other American writers. Malcolm Cowley stated that 

“he[Anderson] soon became a writer’s writer, the only storyteller of his generation who left his mark on the style and vision of the generation that followed. Hemingway, Faulkner, Wolfe, Steinbeck, Caldwell, Saroyan, Henry Miller…each of these owes an unmistakable debt to Anderson, and their names might stand for dozens of others” (Cowley, 1962: 357).

William Faulkner once stated that Anderson was “the the father of my generation of American writers and the tradition of American writing which our successors will carry on” (Chang Yaoxin, 2000: 250).

Regarded as one of his best short stories in his lifetime, The Egg was included in the collection of Anderson’s short stories titled The Triumph of the Egg (1921). The story is about a farmer from the countryside who became infected with the American passion for success. He was a cheerful, kindly man by nature. After he got married, he became ambitious and obsessed in the American passion for getting up in the world. His first venture of raising chickens turned out badly. Then he embarked in the restaurant business with the same dream of getting up in the world. However, ten years of hard work on the farm in vain turned him into a grotesque figure and the continuous failure in the restaurant business made him become desperate in the end.