Winesburg Ohio By Sherwood Anderson Analysis

Modernist literature, a movement following the break out of the First World War, conceptualizes the thoughts and feelings of the “Lost Generation,” which faced the harsh brutalities of global war. In most Modernist texts, authors focus upon the ideas of disillusionment, alienation, collectiveness, disappearing faith, and having little direction. Sherwood Anderson, uses the ideals of the modernist era in his novel, Winesburg, Ohio, to negatively portray the American Dream. In this novel, which is entirely comprised of short stories, he tends the show the fragility in conventional means of success and the pursuit of happiness, as it often fails. On of the short stories from the Winesburg, Ohio is, “The Egg,” which follows the story of a family through the past-tense narration from one of the sons. However, the plot line is centralized around the father, who represents the grotesque. The grotesque, as outcasts from conventional ideals, are the focus of Anderson’s short stories. The Father, attempts twice at the American Dream, and desires to be a charismatic, entertaining person, despite his offputting personality and appearance. In The Egg, Sherwood Anderson portrays a disenfranchised, disillusioned view of the
Moreover, the chickens are born fragile and lack direction, and throughout their lives, Anderson mentions that, “if disease does not kill them… [they] walk under the wheels of a wagon—to go squashed and dead back to their maker,” further presenting the ineffectuality of human life. Ultimately, the same cycle is repeated over and over for the chickens, and no hope is