Abstract

Sherwood Anderson is a famous American novelist in the early 20th century. The Egg is one of the best stories of the collection. The novel, from the perspective of “I”, a boy, tells the experience of the father who desired to succeed, but suffered various frustrations in the course of his pursuit of the Dream. The novel also shows the father was defeated by reality. This paper aims at concretely analyzing the causes of the protagonist’s failed dream from different perspectives of society, history, economy, and the psychological and personal character of Father. In this way, we can bear a comprehensive and profound appreciation of the significance of the American Dream at that time in the United States. Meanwhile, it also helps to enrich the research on the American Dream in American Literature.

Keywords: American Dream; the causes of the failure; The Egg

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction-1

2. Literature Review-1

3. The Failed American Dream in The Egg-2

4. The Causes of the Failure of the Father’s American Dream-4

4.1 Analysis on the external factors-4

4.1.1 The social factors-4

4.1.2 The historical factors-5

4.1.3 The economic factors-6

4.1.4 The religious factors-8

4.2 Analysis on the internal factors-8

4.2.1 From the perspective of the father’s simple nature-9

4.2.2 From the perspective of the father’s paranoid character-9

5. Conclusion-10

Works Cited-11