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"The Egg: A Modernist Tale of Failure"

The story follows a father on a small chicken farm who becomes enraged when he is unable to spin an egg on its side as challenged. As small frustrations continue to occur, the father grows increasingly angry, wanting to be respected. His anger climaxes when he throws an egg at a visitor and then grabs another egg, appearing ready to throw it at his family in a rage. However, he hesitates and slowly lowers his arm, putting his head down and crying in resolution.

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652 views8 pages

"The Egg: A Modernist Tale of Failure"

The story follows a father on a small chicken farm who becomes enraged when he is unable to spin an egg on its side as challenged. As small frustrations continue to occur, the father grows increasingly angry, wanting to be respected. His anger climaxes when he throws an egg at a visitor and then grabs another egg, appearing ready to throw it at his family in a rage. However, he hesitates and slowly lowers his arm, putting his head down and crying in resolution.

Uploaded by

will
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

The Egg

by Sherwood Anderson

Johannes, Garrett, Bodhi, and Will

Plot Diagram
Exposition: The story begins on a small chicken farm outside of Bidwell.
The protagonist talks about his past on a chicken farm.
Rising Action: A man challenges the father that you cant spin an egg on
its side. The father, failing the challenge, gets enraged. He gets
continuously more mad at anything that happens, because he wants to
be respected.
Climax: The father throws an egg at a visitor, then grabs an egg,
misses, becomes enraged, and is seemingly about to throw it at his
family...
Falling Action: The father hesitates, and brings his arm down slowly.
Resolution: He puts his head down, and cries.

Protagonist
Quotes
from
the
Story:

What it Method
means: of
Charac
terizati
on:

Most
philosoph
ers must
have been
raised on
chicken
farms.
One
hopes for
so much
from a

It shows
that he
has a
thought
about all
philosoph
ers and
knows
some
about
chickens

Indirect
Characteri
zation

Antagonist
What
the
Story
Says:

What it Method
means: of
Charac
terizati
on;

A roar
of anger
rose
from my
fathers
throat

The
father
cannot
control
his own
anger
and is
getting
furious
at little

Indirect
Characte
rization

Conflicts Present in the Story


There is Man vs Self present in the story because the Man gets so
angry at himself not being able to make the egg stand on its end.
He is fighting himself to let it go but he cant.
There is Man vs Nature present because the father is fighting the egg
to make it stand on its end which proves to be impossible.
The Man vs Man is present with the conflict between the Father, the
guest in his bar, and, there is also conflict between the father and
the family.

Favorite Lines
Will: Father grinned and winked at the visitor.
Bodhi: Grotesques are born of eggs as out of people
Garrett: He roared a mighty roar.
Johannes: Father cooked the meats.

Authors Point of View


He writes in First Person to make the show the reader the story from his
perspective. This also makes the narrator's situation seem far more
desperate. The father seems to be driven insane by his own failures,
and there is nothing the protagonist can do about it.

Modernism
Sherwood Anderson is a Modernist. His story is all about failure. He
writes of a family desperately trying to succeed, but simply cannot. This
makes the story more grim.He also lets the reader inference that the
father is going insane and lets the reader interpret the story however
they like. While being a comedic story in some ways all parts are not so
funny like when the father goes insane over an egg. He writes about
insanity in the brain and shows life is not perfect.

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