The Egg

-What kind of man was the narrator's father before he married? What changes did he undergo after marriage?
-How does the narrator feel about and view chickens?
-Why does the narrator claim to have had trouble, even as a child, being happy? What are we to make of the author's supposed gloominess and cautions against optimism?
-What role does the father's collection of "grotesques" play in the story?
-After abandoning chicken farming and going into the restaraunt business, what decision does the father make regarding his personality and behavior? What is wrong with this decision, and what happens as a consequence of it?
-What is the meaning of the narrator's statement about the "complete and total triumph of the egg"?

Before the narrator's father was married, he had a routine of a day of work and then an evening at the pub. He was very happy with his life and had little ambition for a higher status or job.
The narrator sees chickens as more trouble than they are worth and overall a complete waste of time. He comments on how they hatch, maybe get diseases, and die; he doesn't see why it is worth paying the money for them to be unreliable.
The narrator says that he was denied a happy childhood because he grew up and worked on a chicken farm. He says that if he hadd not been raised there, he would not have been surrounded by death and he would not have grown up as gloomy as he did.
The father's collection of "grotesques" is what he thinks-and hopes-will bring great success for him and his family. They are, however, extremely strange and quite unsuccessful-they could symbolize the attempt/failure of the narrator's parents ambitions.
The narrator's father tried to beome more cheerful and optimistic about life and his ambitions, and he decided to try to entertain the customers in his restaraunt. However, he never put this idea into action until one day when a young man came in and was bewildered to see the father, suffering from severe stage-fright. The father ended up scaring off the young man after throwing an egg at him in frustration; overall, his plans to be enteraining were less than successful.
The narrator feels that the egg was always hurting him; he grew up surrounded by chickens hatching from eggs who would either die or have more eggs and then die. He felt that they were always in control of his life. This final "triumph" meant that the egg had caused him anxiety and strife once again.