The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly

The opening section establishes Hwang’s novella as an allegory that personifies animals to explore human tendencies, introducing one of the book’s main themes, The Self-Sacrificial Nature of Parenting, and commenting on inclusion and exclusion as well as society’s condemnation of nonconformity. The exposition reveals Sprout’s nonconformity. The other hens in the coop eagerly eat the feed, conforming to the farmer’s wishes: “‘Go on, eat so you can lay lots of big eggs!’ the farmer bellowed” (8). The other egg-laying hens are characterized as conformist and unremarkable in their identical responses: “I’m hungry, hurry hurry!” (6). Unlike Sprout, they don’t yearn for freedom and a more meaningful existence but instead accept their role as egg-laying hens whose destiny is confinement in the coop until they die.

Sprout is characterized as unique compared to the other hens when she ignores the farmer: “He said this every time he fed the hens, and Sprout was sick of hearing it. She gazed into the yard” (8). Sprout’s symbolic gaze outward, rather than inward toward the feed, illustrates her desire to be free and to be a mother. However, the farm’s strict rules prevent her from achieving her heart’s desires; this introduces the book’s pivotal theme, The Search for Freedom and Self-Determination. Unwittingly, Sprout’s refusal to eat (a result of her depression and listlessness over her imprisonment) helps her achieve her dream: Starvation leaves her weak and makes the egg she lays “chalky” and “flecked with blood” (5); it doesn’t even form a shell, and this leads to her ejection from the coop.

The acacia tree symbolizes the freedom Sprout craves; she gazes at it longingly from within the coop: “Through the gap she could see an acacia tree” (5). It represents a life of freedom outside the coop. Sprout even roosts beneath the acacia tree on the first night she’s kicked out of the barn by the other animals; it makes sense that she would gravitate toward her beloved symbol of freedom. The acacia tree also symbolizes the cycles of nature that rule Sprout’s own life, introducing another key theme, Nature’s Cycle of Death and Rebirth. Sprout names herself after the cycle of death and regeneration, which she finds amazing: “A sprout grew into a leaf and embraced the wind and the sun before falling and rotting and turning into mulch for bringing fragrant flowers into bloom” (7). The text again refers to Sprout’s self-determination in that she names herself; the other hens are unnamed. Furthermore, the novella’s description of the life cycle of the tree foreshadows the events of Sprout’s life; she rejoins the natural world from which the coop kept her, helps facilitate new life by nurturing the egg that becomes Baby, and in the novel’s conclusion encourages the weasel to eat her so that her body can provide nourishment to help ensure the growth of the weasel’s babies.

Like the hens in the coop, the other farm animals are characterized as conformist and small-minded. The farm’s strict rules dictate their entire lives: their roles and the places they live, eat, and sleep. The dog ridicules Sprout for questioning the farm’s rules:

‘Why can’t I live in the yard? I’m a hen, too, just like she is.’ ‘Ha! silly chicken. What makes you think that? Yes. you’re both hens, but you’re different. How do you not know that? Just like I’m a gatekeeper and the rooster announces the morning, you’re supposed to lay eggs in a cage, not in the yard!’ (38).

Like Sprout, Straggler is characterized as an outsider. When he advocates for Sprout’s right to sleep in the barn, the other animals are quick to remind him of this: “You’re an outsider. How dare you insult us?” (27). As a wild duck, not a domesticated duck, he isn’t easily categorized in the farm’s ordered systems and therefore attracts skepticism and condemnation from the conformist farm animals.

The despondency that Sprout felt in the coop soon returns, despite her newfound freedom, as she’s prevented from her wish to become a mother. She wonders, “If I can’t lay an egg, what’s the point of my life?” (40). The white duck’s egg, which Sprout stumbles upon, becomes a symbol of her desire for motherhood. Her attachment to the egg develops quickly, which mirrors the extent of her desire to be a mother: “Sprout plucked the feathers off her chest to better feel the egg. A lump hardened in her throat. This is my egg. My baby that I can tell stories to! Already Sprout loved the egg” (43). Caring for the egg brings joy, love, and purpose to her life and is characterized as a turning point for Sprout: “Morning dawned. Everything was different from the day before. Sprout covered the egg with the feathers she’d plucked off her chest” (43). Sprout’s adoption of the egg and her prioritizing its care above all other needs, alludes to the importance of The Self-Sacrificial Nature of Parenting as a theme.

Dramatic irony is evident in Sprout’s ignorance of Straggler’s connection to the egg, which he obviously fathered. In Chapter 4, “The Egg in the Briar Patch,” Sprout “saw Straggler playfully splashing the white duck and hopping on her back” (40). This revelation conveys that Straggler impregnates the white duck, whom the weasel tragically kills in the moment when Sprout hears “a piercing scream” (41). Straggler’s distress at having lost his partner and mother to his child is clear, as is Sprout’s lack of understanding of the situation: “He moved his head out from under his wing and looked at her with sad eyes. Sprout wondered why his expression was so dark [and] where the white duck was” (44). Sprout’s ignorance of impregnation is also evident in her desire to lay an egg that hatches despite the fact that she has no mate outside the coop.