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Angela's ashes and the street comparsison
Essay on Angela's Ashes and The Street
Essay on Angela's Ashes and The Street
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The two pieces, "Angela´s Ashes" by Frank McCourt, and "The Street" by Ann Petry, share one common theme upon reading both sources, that being the relationship between the characters and setting. In "Angela´s Ashes", the narrator lives with hunger and her starving family struggle contributed by abnegation of food in their household. In summary, "The Street¨ tells about a woman, Lutie Johnson, who passes in a wind through the setting where it is merely established by the use of personification, imagery, and characterization. To corroborate, both authors establish a relationship between the two main characters from the excerpts and the setting, creating a theme that our protagonists go through a struggle to get what they need and have a hinderance that deters them. …show more content…
¨...my brothers are starving and we'll all be dead for the want of bread¨ (McCourt P.3).
In the narrator's case, her siblings are in desperate need of food to eat. Illustrating the relationship between the characters and the setting, the author accomplishes this purpose by the narrator's relationship with the characters themselves. She and her family live in a cold, frigid secluded town where almost anybody hardly walks the street. The author shows the setting when the narrator is revealed to be residing in a secluded area, according to McCourt. "..and there isn't a soul on the street..." (McCourt P.5). Insinuating that they reside in a rural environment, contributing to the setting of the story, applying from the quote. "I put on my shoes and run quickly through the streets of Limerick to keep myself warm against the February frost" (McCourt P.3). The author uses this setting to drive the narrator to provide the need despite her struggle with the conflict, thus concluding the character has a negative correlation with the
setting. "Each time she thought she had the sign in focus, the wind pushed it away from her so that she wasn't certain whether it said three rooms or two rooms" (Petry P.3). One way the author affects readers is Lutie Johnson is a resident in a grim, bitter city. From this excerpt, she finds herself in this situation. The wind is personified as 'assaulting' people on the street. "It found all the dirt and dust and grime on the sidewalk and lifted it up so that the dirt got into their noses, making it difficult to breathe" (Petry P.2). The author uses this to create an imagery where the setting is negatively characterized such as the uses of words like "dirt and dust and grime". Furthermore, we can see that both characters are living in a grim world of their own according to the setting. As reiterated, the authors of each source establish a relationship between the main character and the setting around them, establishing the theme that our protagonists go through a struggle to get what they need and have a hinderance that deters them. In conclusion, both sources use imagery where the setting is characterized negatively; it is, however, what drives them to create that theme.
In Angela's Ashes, a similar theme is struggling through life's obstacles. We are made aware of this theme by using character. In paragraph 4, McCourt writes, "You can look in people's windows and see how cozy it is in their kitchens with fires glowing or
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 ...
In this passage “The Street” by Ann Petry, Lutie Johnson’s relationship with her urban setting is expressed using figurative language. Lutie allows us to walk with her and experience one cold November night near the streets of seventh and eighth avenue. The relationship between Lutie Johnson and the urban setting is established using personification, imagery, and characterization.
As he slouches in bed, a description of the bare trees and an old woman gathering coal are given to convey to the reader an idea of the times and the author's situation. "All groves are bare," and "unmarried women (are) sorting slate from arthracite." This image operates to tell the reader that it is a time of poverty, or a "yellow-bearded winter of depression." No one in the town has much to live for during this time. "Cold trees" along with deadness, through the image of "graves," help illustrate the author's impression of winter. Wright seems to be hibernating from this hard time of winter, "dreaming of green butterflies searching for diamonds in coal seams." This conveys a more colorful and happy image showing what he wishes was happening; however he knows that diamonds are not in coal seams and is brought back to the reality of winter. He talks of "hills of fresh graves" while dreaming, relating back to the reality of what is "beyond the streaked trees of (his) window," a dreary, povern-strucken, and cold winter.
"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.
The Valley of Ash, the least described region of the book, is an impoverished region connecting the prosperous, the wealthy New York City and the wealthier Long Island. The neighborhood is a “dismal scene” (23), which Nick Caraway is forced to view every time he rides the train into the city. The name valley of ash is an informal name deriving from the sheer quantity of ash, littering the city. Ashes cover and define everything in the city: the “ridges and hills and grotesque gardens”, the “houses and chimneys”, and the “men”. Similarly, the residents of the valley are hardly characterized by Caraway, because he cannot understand them. The smoke “obscures” and “obfuscates” the actions of these men both literally and figurative: a rich man like Caraway cannot understand the pure and intolerable poverty. The residents of the valley are plain and not very interesting. Most predominately featured ...
Set in 1936, Angela’s Ashes follows the difficult lives of Angela McCourt, her husband, Malachy and their children. The oldest child of the family Frank McCourt was born into the worst kind of poverty in Brooklyn, New York. Frank and his family wore nothing more than rags and the little food they had came from the charity of kind people. His mother, Angela didn’t work and his father always drank his paycheck away. Even with out steady income to support one child, the McCourt family kept on growing extending to Malachy, Margaret, the twins- Eugene and Oliver, and eventually Michael and Alphonsus. Thus, beginning at a young age, Frank had the responsibility of tending to his brothers and sisters while his mother was desperately trying to find food to feed the family, and his father was getting drunk in the bars.
Frank McCourt shows much suffering in the novel Angela’s Ashes, and uses it as a vehicle to show strength in adversity. It is said that out of adversity comes greatness, and Frank McCourt tells us about his struggles and hardships that led him to achieve great things within this memoir, Angela’s Ashes. Frank McCourt is a perfect example of someone who struggles throughout their whole life, and perseveres through it all, goes after his dreams, and turns his life around. Many who read this book will see Frank McCourt as an inspiration and a role model for sticking to his dreams, and achieving them.
The valley of ashes is “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent efforts, or men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air” (23). Here, The Valley of Ashes is regarded as complete destitution and hopelessness. The people known as the lower class do not wish to live in the valley of ashes. This is why people, like Myrtle try to do anything to get away from it but instead it becomes unachievable for them.
Frank McCourt’s memoir, Angela’s Ashes (1996), has been popularly received by readers and critics alike due to its raw, disturbing portrayals of Frank’s life growing up in Limerick, Ireland. The memoir was even turned into a film, which was again fairly well received. However, though some might argue that the stories contained within McCourt’s memoir are brutally honest and open, accurately depicting the life of a poor Irish family struggling to survive through various hardships, others – specifically the people of Limerick – have found the memoir to be offensive and inaccurate, casting the city in a negative light simply to elicit popularity among readers. This essay
The story begins as the boy describes his neighborhood. Immediately feelings of isolation and hopelessness begin to set in. The street that the boy lives on is a dead end, right from the beginning he is trapped. In addition, he feels ignored by the houses on his street. Their brown imperturbable faces make him feel excluded from the decent lives within them. The street becomes a representation of the boy’s self, uninhabited and detached, with the houses personified, and arguably more alive than the residents (Gray). Every detail of his neighborhood seems designed to inflict him with the feeling of isolation. The boy's house, like the street he lives on, is filled with decay. It is suffocating and “musty from being long enclosed.” It is difficult for him to establish any sort of connection to it. Even the history of the house feels unkind. The house's previous tenant, a priest, had died while living there. He “left all his money to institutions and the furniture of the house to his sister (Norton Anthology 2236).” It was as if he was trying to insure the boy's boredom and solitude. The only thing of interest that the boy can find is a bicycle pump, which is rusty and rendered unfit to play with. Even the “wild” garden is gloomy and desolate, containing but a lone apple tree and a few straggling bushes. It is hardly the sort of yard that a young boy would want. Like most boys, he has no voice in choosing where he lives, yet his surroundings have a powerful effect on him.
In the opening scenes of the story the reader gets the impression that the boy lives in the backwash of his city. His symbolic descriptions offer more detail as to what he thinks about his street. The boy says “North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street [it’s houses inhabited with] decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces” (Joyce 984). This shows that the boy feels that the street and town have become conceited and unoriginal. While to young to comprehend this at the time the matured narrator states that he now realizes this. The boy is also isolated in the story because he mentions that when the neighborhood kids go and play he finds it to be a waste of time. He feels that there are other things he could be doing that playing with the other boys. This is where the narrator starts to become aware of the fact that not everything is what is seems. He notices the minute details but cannot quite put them together yet. As the story progresses one will see that th...
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt follows the struggles of the author at a young age living in Ireland as he works hard to achieve his dream of moving back to the United States where he was born. McCourt faces many challenges in his life revolving around money, social acceptance, and health of his family. A primary cause for the many problems in his life are the actions and attitudes of his parents, Angela and Malachy McCourt. Frank McCourt's novel, Angela’s Ashes, depicts conflict between him and his parents through Malachy’s addiction to alcohol, Angela’s mental state, and both parents’ inability to provide for their family.
To begin, the reader may gather that the poem has a very dark and saddened tone. Due to Lowell's vivid imagery, a mental image of a dark urban setting is created. It also seems very cold, with the mentioning of wind and nighttime. Readers may be able to relate to urban places they know, adding to the reality of the poem. Connections can be made. The imagery is left in such a way that the reader can fill in the gaps with their own memories or settings. Also, since the poem uses free verse, the structure is left open to interpretation. This makes the poem more inviting and easier to interpret, rather than reading it as a riddle. However, though simple in imagery, the poem still captures the reader's interest due to the creation it sparks, yet it never strays away from the theme of bei...
The story opens with a description of North Richmond Street, a "blind," "cold ... .. silent" street where the houses "gazed at one an-other with brown imperturbable faces." It is a street of fixed, decaying conformity and false piety. The boy's house contains the samesense of a dead present and a lost past. The former tenant, a priest,died in the ba...