Salvador Dali once said “The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant”. Today, I am here to explain to you that life writing, memoirs and biographies are merely a representation of reality, and should therefore be classified as fiction. These genres all fit under the definition of “recount of a person’s history”. However, with very basic research into some memoirs, I found that they are much more than this; they are fabrications, under the pretence of a true story, leading unaware readers to believe false realities. Today, I will show you this by exposing a lie in one of the most famous memoirs, Angela’s Ashes. I will also show you that …show more content…
at the very least, memoir authors exaggerate their stories to capture readers. I myself unknowingly fell into this trap when writing a brief memoir of a couple of days of my life. When I couldn’t remember a specific detail about my story, I slipped into simply embellishing the story, making it more theatrical and enjoyable. There have been literally over a hundred instances in Angela’s Ashes where McCourt’s story has been questioned.
One of the most notable is when Frank McCourt recounts when he and his friends would visit Willie Harrold, who would charge them money to look at his sister’s undressing. Records have shown that Harrold, who later became heavily involved with the catholic church, didn’t have any sisters. While you may not think this affects the story significantly, knowing that Frank has flat-out lied, how can we know that he is telling the truth at all? This immediately imposes Frank as an unreliable narrator, automatically invalidating his story. This tall story also puts Harrold’s career at enormous risk. If his family records were not investigated, Frank’s statement that suggested he was an incestual pervert could potentially ruin any chance Harrold had in a career in the catholic church. And this is not the only time that Frank conflicts with the church. When describing his “miserable” life he states “worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood”. For the first of many times, he portrays the Catholic Church in a negative light. Regularly throughout the book, McCourt positions the reader to see the religion unflatteringly, by using techniques like silencing the Church’s perspective and describing it using unfavourable language. Rather than telling the truth, he forces the reader to see the world as he does, marginalising any other …show more content…
perspectives. For most of the novel, the McCourt’s family are in very dire situations.
Perhaps the most prevalent theme of the book is based on the socio-economic status of being poor. However, upon analysis, it is obvious that McCourt has blown his situation far out of proportion. He claims that, while in Limerick, him and his family of three younger brothers lived in a tiny house, sleeping in the same bed with a public toilet literally metres from their front door that would overflow and run into their house that they would be forced to walk through it several times day, on top sleeping in the cold most nights due to lack of firewood and blankets. It is difficult to believe this scenario especially due to their diet of undernourishing food like black tea and bread a few times per week. How could these young children possibly survive in this living situation with the population of Limerick constantly suffering from diseases described? This narrative is simply too good to be true. On the very first page of Angela’s Ashes McCourt writes “When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all”. This alone evidently over emphasises The McCourts’ predicament. By his version, it is impossible to believe that they survived. Here it is obvious that Francis has fabricated this story, to the point where it could only be classified as fiction. McCourt’s only goal was to sell copies, resulting to counterfeiting his so called “life story” in order to capture the reader and entice them to
purchase his book. This is common with autobiographers, at the very least embellishing their story to represent themselves in a more compelling fashion. This statement became even more significant to me when I wrote my first memoir a few weeks ago. I decided to write about when my brother became suddenly very ill and was rushed to the Royal Brisbane Hospital. When writing, I found it difficult to remember a time that I was overly stressed. I knew my brother was in the most capable hands in Australia. However, when I wrote, I silenced this emotion as I knew it would detract from the emotion of my story. “The next few minutes were the most heart wrenching moments of my life” I wrote. Quite easily, I slipped into exaggerating my story in order to captivate my audience. Eventually, I was completely falsifying my story to create the most exciting version of the experience. I fell into this role while writing a memoir about a few days of my life, purely for the entertainment of less than five people that would read it. Can you imagine how much amplification and distortion of events that McCourt would utilise when recounting his entire life - not to mention while trying to sell copies of his book to put food on the table for his family? Most fiction novels are loosely based on the truth, which is why life writing, memoirs and autobiographies should also be regarded as fiction. Authors, like Frank McCourt, plainly forge their own history in a selfish attempt to fool readers into believing their stories that are hyperrealistic. At the very least, authors fall into simply magnifying drama in their history to capture readers. This is why, the next time you walk into the bookstore, open up the new up-and-coming memoir, do not submit to the absurdity of believing these unreal stories. Judge each autobiography as what it should be classified as; fiction literature.
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 ...
Many people believe that the importance of family is crucial. The memoir Angela’s Ashes is written by Frank McCourt. It examines the poor upbringing and the relationships within the McCourt family during the 1930’s. Through the use of descriptive language, dialogue and characterisation, it supports and opposes various values including the importance of family and the impact it has on the relationships enclosed in the memoir.
McCourt is able to use humor, irony, and point of view to make the tale of Angela’s Ashes one which will never be forgotten.
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.
In Frank McCourt’s memoir Angela’s Ashes, the connection between tone, syntax, and point of view combine to create an effective balance of humor and pathos. This is shown through the perspective of little Frank McCourt. Sometimes it is human nature to try to make a tragedy seem better than it is in order to go on with our lives. Frank’s struggle to make his situation as a poor, Catholic, Irish boy more bearable, is demonstrated through the positive tone, powerful syntax and childlike point of view.
The mother of Frank McCourt, Angela, is an antagonist. She blamed Malachy Sr. for all of their problems calling him “useless,” “sitting on your arse by the fire is no place for a man”(218). Angela constantly ridiculing Malachy Sr. could be the cause of his alcohol addiction. Angela never made him feel like a man throughout the book she was always putting him down, the assumption of alcohol was the only thing he was really happy about. Angelas constant nagging drove him away leaving his family without much. Also, Angela constantly abandons her children. Her sexual desires caused her to continue having children despite the hunger and poverty they were already facing. Every time one of her children died she abandoned the rest of them, not taking care of them. The children had to survive on their own during her time of grieving. After Frank’s fight with Laman, Angela never once made sure Frank was okay. Instead she goes to Laman,
Knowing about the writer of a literary text can shape significantly the way that it is read. Consider the effect of the writer’s context on your understanding of The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum.
...conclusion, the McCourt’s decision was appropriate because concerning both, North American and Irish historical contexts at the time, Ireland was a rising country while the United States declined: hope was not present within the North Americans but it was in the Irish. In the psychological aspect, Frank’s family was willing to rebuild their life after the loss of Margaret and the progressive depression of Angela. They needed a new place to begin their lives.
It should be noted that gaining an identity in autobiographical writing is crucial “because literacy becomes a way of creating an identity where before there was none in the public discourse” (Finkelman, vol.2, 190). Although the identities of William and Ellen Craft may have been revealed partially before their narrative, their own words and experience have a much greater impact on the reader than if told by a secondary source.
The story of Frank McCourt’s childhood is a woeful tale of desperation, heartache, and dreams of a better life for Frank and his family. However Malachy, Frank’s father, was an alcoholic. Malachy was not alone in his struggle and much of Ireland was affected by “the sickness” at the time. Malachy routinely involved his sons in a ritual in which Malachy would line up his children and have them swear their allegiance to Ireland (Matiko). This occurred at least seven times throughout Angela’s Ashes and was a highly detailed routine and a founding basis on which the story began.
The basis of the story the narrator wishes to write is the idea of the fabrication of letters that he will sell for money, the premise actually coming from the original proposal that Lerner wrote for the book that came to be 10:04. This story, which is based on a story that the narrator hears from his old professor, is an actual truth, turned into fiction, but is ultimately cut from the story (Lerner 37). Instead of focusing explicitly on the way that fiction functions as a type of fraudulent activity, Lerner and the narrator want to spin the ‘real’ details of life into something that is “just as it is now – the room, the baby, the clothes, the minutes – just a little different” (Lerner 54). By translating the story into terms that exist almost exactly as they exist in the real world into the fiction world, the potential for the reader to recognize the ‘fictional truths’ is heightened.
In the story “Two Kinds”, the author, Amy Tan, intends to make reader think of the meaning behind the story. She doesn’t speak out as an analyzer to illustrate what is the real problem between her and her mother. Instead, she uses her own point of view as a narrator to state what she has experienced and what she feels in her mind all along the story. She has not judged what is right or wrong based on her opinion. Instead of giving instruction of how to solve a family issue, the author chooses to write a narrative diary containing her true feeling toward events during her childhood, which offers reader not only a clear account, but insight on how the narrator feels frustrated due to failing her mother’s expectations which leads to a large conflict between the narrator and her mother.
The late Steve Jobs in his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University eloquently traced the imprint of a calligraphy class he had taken at Reed College years before to the creation of today’s worldwide standard in computer typography. Esteemed architect Frank Gehry can trace the imprint of his college job working in a museum to his current success, and moreover can trace the imprint of a different piece of art to each one of the buildings he has created. President Bill Clinton can trace the imprint of witnessing Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1963 “I have a Dream” speech to his decision to devote his life to politics. However, in regards to the novelist and tracing the imprint of their work, it appears the dominate voice echoing through the pages of their novel is life experience. Two such novels that trace their imprint from life experience are Sister Carrie by former newspaper reporter Theodore Dreiser, and The Day of the Locust by screenwriter Nathanael West.
There are many scenes in Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt that were very powerful and took a dramatic role not only in Frank’s life but also his families. The first scene that I thought was most powerful was when baby Margaret had died and brought with her a great deal of despair to her parents. Furthermore leading the McCourt family to move to Ireland where they suffer even more. The second scene I chose was when Malachy Sr. returned to England for the second time and abandoned his family for good never to be seen again in the novel. Without a father around Frank started to be the man of the house and started to feel a sort of responsibly in taking care of his family. The third and final scene in which I thought was most powerful was when Frank
Carlisle, Janice. “The Mirror In the Mill on the Floss; Toward Reading of Autobiography Discourse”. Studies in the Literary Imagination. Vol 23:Issue 2. [EBSCO] Masterfile Premier 1990