Angela’s Ashes, by Frank McCourt is a genuine memoir that vividly tells the story of a young, Irish Catholic boy during the 1930’s and early 1940’s. Frank’s memory of his impoverished childhood is difficult to accept, however, he injects a sense of devilish humor into his biography. He creates a story where the readers watch him grow beyond all odds and live through the pinnacle of the miserable Irish Catholic childhood. “People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty, the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years”(McCourt 11). His interaction with his family proves that despite the hunger and pain, love and strength come out of misery. Although the book tells the experience of an individual, the story itself is universal.
Born in Brooklyn in 1930 to recent Irish immigrants Malachy and Angela McCourt, Frank grew up in Limerick after his parents returned to Ireland because of poor prospects in America. Due to the Great Depression, Malachy could not find work in America. However, things did not get any better back in Ireland for Malachy. A chronically unemployed and nearly unemployable alcoholic, he appears to be the model on which many of our more insulting cliches about drunken Irish manhood are based. Week after week, Angela would be home expecting her husband to come home with money to eat, but Malachy always spent his wages on pints at local pubs. Frank’s father would come home late at night and make his sons get out of bed and sing patriotic songs about Ireland by Roddy McCorley and Kevin Barry, who were hung for their country. Frank loved his father and got an empty feeling in his heart when he knew his father was out of work again. Frank described his father as the Holy Trinity because there is three people in him, “The one in the morning with the paper, the one at night with the stories and prayers, and then the one who does the bad thing and comes home with the smell of whiskey and wants us to die for Ireland” (McCourt 210). Even when there was a war going on and English agents were recruiting Irishmen to work in their munitions factories, Malachy could not keep a job when he traveled to England.
money left in the family and they are living a poor and unhappy life without enough money
The first barrier to a better life had to do with surviving poverty or the absence of certain privileges. In Angela’s Ashes, Frank, the protagonist of the book, along with his family had to endure persistent rains, exposure to disease and starvation. Frank and Malachy Jr. had to resort to stealing food several ...
Frank McCourt was born in depression-era Brooklyn and remained there until the age of four when he left with his family to his native country, Ireland. He came face too face with many hardships but managed to make it back to New York city at age nineteen. Upon his arrival Frank worked as a high school English teacher for forty-five years. After retiring from teaching, Frank, along with his brother, Malachy, performed a two man show called “A couple of Blaguards.” Frank won the Pulitzer Prize for his book Angela’s Ashes in 1997.
First and formost, Frank McCourt's, "Angela's Ashes" ,shows the development of poverty and perseverance through the mian characters struggles of starvation. For example, the main character shows perseverance through him needing to become the "caretaker" of the family from such a young age. "Grandma
Included within the anthology The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction,1[1] are the works of great Irish authors written from around three hundred years ago, until as recently as the last decade. Since one might expect to find in an anthology such as this only expressions and interpretations of Irish or European places, events or peoples, some included material could be quite surprising in its contrasting content. One such inclusion comes from the novel Black Robe,2[2] by Irish-born author Brian Moore. Leaving Ireland as a young man afforded Moore a chance to see a great deal of the world and in reflection afforded him a great diversity of setting and theme in his writings. And while his Black Robe may express little of Ireland itself, it expresses much of Moore in his exploration into evolving concepts of morality, faith, righteousness and the ever-changing human heart.
At 11:19 in the morning of April 19, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold stood at the west entrance of Columbine High School preparing for the deadliest shooting in American school history. One of them yelled, "Go! Go!," and then the two pulled out their shotguns and began firing, killing two students almost immediately (Jefferson County 3). Harris and Klebold began moving through the school randomly shooting students, detonating pipe bombs, and yelling about how much fun they were having. While this was happening, Coach Dave Sanders and other heroes were frantically trying to get students out of harm's way. At 11:26, while running past the library warning students of the killers, Sanders was shot by one of the shooters. He made it into a science room where first aid was administered by students. He died several hours later in that same room. The worst killing took place in the library during a span of about eight minutes starting at 11:29. Ten students were killed and twelve others were wounded. After leaving the library, Harris and Klebold wandered around the school in movements that appeared to be "extremely random" (Jefferson County 18). They eventually returned to the library at about 12:08 and killed themselves. In 49 minutes, 14 students were left dead, one teacher was left dying, 23 people were injured, and an entire community's sense of safety and security was shattered.
O'Connor, Thomas H. The Boston Irish: A Political History. Boston, MA. Northeastern University Press, 1995.
Have you ever been convinced by someone to do a chore, but you end up doing more than you expected? What about being told that doing homework helps you become smarter? These forms of propaganda persuade you to do/join something that you are interested in, but the result is not what you expected. The British author, George Orwell, who wrote 1984 and Animal Farm, was interested in showing the human tendency to get what they want. In Animal Farm, he shows us the results of not considering possible consequences of obtaining our wants, through Squealer-the persuasive “propaganda” pig who will do many things to cover up traces of the true actions being done. Squealer uses propaganda to persuade the other animals into doing something, but at the cost of misleading the other animals.
As students, education is essential when gaining knowledge in areas in which they are not familiar with. Although students are exposed to the core curriculums, they are lacking the ability to retain knowledge from the world around them. As an Asian American, I receive many questions that involve my cultural background and lifestyle. Even though Asian Americans are considered as the “minority,” I often find myself asking the same questions about other backgrounds. Being able to learn about world culture may bring more awareness to our actions, knowledge of our peers’ backgrounds, and an understanding of diversity around the world.
On August 01st, 1966 on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin, many families lost their loved ones to the actions of Charles Whitman, a lone gunman who was only 25 years old at the time; Whitman climbed the campus tower, and with three rifles, two pistols, and a sawed-off shotgun, he shot forty-three people, (thirteen of whom died,) in just under ninety-six minutes. This historic tragic event became known as the UT Tower Shooting.
Hamlet’s philosophy on life is also much different than Gertrude’s. Hamlet doesn’t care at all for his mortal life and is in search of life’s most elusive answers. Gertrude on the other hand, only cares for her mortal life. She enjoys the many pleasures that comes with being a beautiful, prominent queen and takes full advantage of it. She takes pride in her personal possessions and also is very sexual while Hamlet care more about the greater things in life. One person argues than, “It was her sexuality that turned Hamlet so violently against her in the first place.
A collection of short stories published in 1907, Dubliners, by James Joyce, revolves around the everyday lives of ordinary citizens in Dublin, Ireland (Freidrich 166). According to Joyce himself, his intention was to "write a chapter of the moral history of [his] country and [he] chose Dublin for the scene because the city seemed to [b]e the centre of paralysis" (Friedrich 166). True to his goal, each of the fifteen stories are tales of disappointment, darkness, captivity, frustration, and flaw. The book is divided into four sections: childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public life (Levin 159). The structure of the book shows that gradually, citizens become trapped in Dublin society (Stone 140). The stories portray Joyce's feeling that Dublin is the epitome of paralysis and all of the citizens are victims (Levin 159). Although each story from Dubliners is a unique and separate depiction, they all have similarities with each other. In addition, because the first three stories -- The Sisters, An Encounter, and Araby parallel each other in many ways, they can be seen as a set in and of themselves. The purpose of this essay is to explore one particular similarity in order to prove that the childhood stories can be seen as specific section of Dubliners. By examining the characters of Father Flynn in The Sisters, Father Butler in An Encounter, and Mangan's sister in Araby, I will demonstrate that the idea of being held captive by religion is felt by the protagonist of each story. In this paper, I argue that because religion played such a significant role in the lives of the middle class, it was something that many citizens felt was suffocating and from which it was impossible to get away. Each of the three childhood stories uses religion to keep the protagonist captive. In The Sisters, Father Flynn plays an important role in making the narrator feel like a prisoner. Mr. Cotter's comment that "… a young lad [should] run about and play with young lads of his own age…" suggests that the narrator has spent a great deal of time with the priest. Even in death, the boy can not free himself from the presence of Father Flynn (Stone 169) as is illustrated in the following passage: "But the grey face still followed me. It murmured; and I understood that it desired to confess something.
"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable child hood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood Is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood", writes Frank McCourt of his early life. Although Frank McCourt's autobiography, Angela's Ashes, paints a picture of both terrible poverty and struggles, this text is appealing and up lifting because of its focus on both humor and hope. McCourt's text shows the determination people living in dreadful conditions must have in order to rise above their situations and make better lives for themselves and their families. The effect of the story, although often distressing and sad, is not depressing. Frank as the young narrator describes his life events without bitterness, anger, or blame. Poverty and hardship are treated simply as if they are a fact of life, and in spite of the hard circumstances, many episodes during the novel are hilarious.
Gertrude’s first weakness, her lack of compassion, is shown early in the play when she urges Hamlet to cease mourning for his dead father. “Do not forever with thy vailèd lids seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thou know'st 'tis common. All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity” (1.2 68-75). Gertrude tells Hamlet that he can’t spend his whole life with his eyes to the ground remembering his noble father and that it happens all the time, that what lives must die eventually. This is a perfect example of Gertrude’s shallowness. Instead of consoling her son, she advises him to move on from his deceased father. She demonstrates no grief about her husband’s death and no concern for her grieving son. In act two, Gertrude reveals that she thinks Hamlet’s strange behavior is because of his father’s death and her quick marriage. This is a perfect ex...
...nd their hierarchy (Hatch 364). Therefore comparing traditions, family bonds, respect to elders, and their academic motivation of these two cultures is more than complicated and one would have to study them further in depth in order to understand their traditions, beliefs, behaviors. But due to globalization, many of these differences are slowly vanishing, but there is still very strong presence of the culture in the first wave of immigrants, which may cause disruptions among “Western Asian Families”, because children of immigrants, who were born in a foreign western country, lack the contact with the culture, therefore it is very difficult for them to adapt to two different cultures, the one their parents come from, and the one they live in. But those who can adapt to both cultures, and are able to balance between them perfectly, gain a very significant advantage.