“When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all...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.” Angela’s Ashes is an autobiographical memoir that explores the “miserable Irish Catholic childhood” of Frank McCourt. McCourt paints a picture of a childhood entangled in poverty and misery. He was born in America to an alcoholic father and struggling mother desperate to feed her family. The theme displayed throughout the story was that hunger and poverty can cause an individual to leave their dire surroundings; as a child, McCourt never have enough food and the food he managed to produce was unsatisfying; he was determined to leave Ireland in search …show more content…
For example, “The bed creaks all night with her twistings and turnings and she keeps us awake with her moaning for water.” Meaning, the McCourts don’t always have a readily available supply of food or drinks; This quote shows due to the state of poverty the McCourts are in, their need for food or drinks is not always satisfied. Also mentioned in the text, “Mam sits by the fire, shivering, and we know something is wrong when she makes no move for a cigarette. She says she feels a cold coming and she’d love to have a tarty drink, a lemonade. But there’s no money in the house, not even for bread in the morning.” This quote presents how impoverished the family is; due to the lack of money, they cannot afford to feed themselves. This develops the theme because it shows the McCourts are in desperate need of food yet they cannot afford to buy it; McCourt also demonstrates how his current settings is one factor influencing his decision to vacate
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.
Despite the adversity that plagued the children of South Boston throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Southie native Michael Patrick MacDonald often remarked that he grew up in “the best place in the world,” suggesting that while adversity can be crippling, it does not guarantee a bad life. Throughout his childhood, MacDonald and his family suffered from extreme poverty, experienced the effects of drugs on the family structure, and felt the poor educational effects in a struggling neighborhood. Through his memoir, All Souls, readers gain an in-depth perspective of Michael Patrick MacDonald’s life, especially his childhood. Because readers are able to see MacDonald as both a child and an adult, it is possible to see how the circumstances of his childhood
The tenement was the biggest hindrance to achieving the American myth of rags to riches. It becomes impossible for one to rise up in the social structure when it can be considered a miracle to live passed the age of five. Children under the age of five living in tenements had a death rate of 139.83 compared to the city’s overall death rate of 26.67. Even if one did live past the age of five it was highly probable he’d become a criminal, since virtually all of them originate from the tenements. They are forced to steal and murder, they’ll do anything to survive, Riis appropriately calls it the “survival of the unfittest”. (Pg.
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.
Angela’s Ashes - Frank McCourt's Love/Hate Relationship with his Father. Angela’s Ashes is a memoir of Frank McCourt’s childhood and the difficulties he faced whilst growing up. His family were very poor and moved from America to Limerick to try and live an easier life. Frank’s father was constantly out of a job and never had enough money to support his family and friends.
The struggles that many face while experiencing poverty are not like any other. When a person is experiencing poverty, they deal with unbearable hardships as well as numerous tragic events. Diane Gilliam Fisher’s collection of poems teaches readers about labor battles within West Virginian territories, at the beginning of the twentieth century. Some of these battles include the Battle of Matewan and Battle of Blair Mountain. The collection of poems is presented in many different manners, ranging from diary entries to letters to journal entries. These various structures of writing introduce the reader to contrasting images and concepts in an artistic fashion. The reader is able to witness firsthand the hardships and the light and dark times of impoverished people’s lives. He or she also learns about the effects of birth and death on poverty stricken communities. In the collection of poems in Kettle Bottom, Fisher uses imagery and concepts to convey contrast between the positive and negative aspects of the lives of people living in poverty.
The Theme of Religion in Angela’s Ashes Throughout the novel, religion is presented as being of extreme importance in Irish society, influencing the beliefs and actions of the characters. I will attempt to highlight the several factors which I believe make up the presentation of religion in “Angela’s Ashes”. From the beginning of the book, religion is said to make up a large part of the unhappy childhood Frank suffered. The following quote shows the extent of Frank’s sentiments: “Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood, is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood” The quote above portrays the crescendo of negative emotion, describing the worse possible scenario of a childhood, adding finally “Catholic” to signify the most terrible part of the childhood Frank suffered.
Theme is the subject of talk, a topic, or morals that the author is trying to get readers to comprehend. When reading an excerpt, the theme is not directly stated in the text, so you must dig deeper into the context to understand the matter trying to be portrayed. In both Angela's Ashes and The Street, we can distinguish a like theme of struggling through life’s complications. After reading the two different stories, we could select the theme from using character, events, and the setting.
Stephen Crane’s novella, “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets” deals with many difficult concepts and situations. However, the most prevalent seems to be the people that find themselves caught in a vicious cycle of violence. Although some claim that a literary label cannot possibly contain Crane’s work, his ideas certainly have much in common with other naturalistic writers of his time. He portrays poor Irish immigrants, the dregs of humanity, struggling for survival during the Industrial Revolution. Even while relating terrible events, Crane remains detached in the typical naturalistic style, seeming to view the world as a broad social experiment. As the story opens, we are instantly drawn into a heart-wrenching arena where people behave like animals, tearing each other apart if it will help them to reach the zenith of the food chain. Yet in this cycle of violence, Crane definitively incriminates the environment over every other malevolent influence acting upon his victims; using a theme of violence, a tone lacking in emotion, rich imagery, and strong personification of the environment, Crane fashions a wild Darwinian view of society that leaves all of the blame resting on a person’s surroundings rather than his choices.
Since the story uses a certain object, the Jacket, as the meaning of several issues, it primarily focuses on the narrator's poverty-stricken family. First of all, an example of the poverty is demonstrated when the narrator complains that the jacket "was so ugly and big that I knew I'd have to wear it a long time"(paragraph 3). It is clear that his lack of money was a problem in which he would have to keep the jacket because he could not afford a new one. The narrator then feels embarrassed and upset by the jacket by stating "I blame my mother for her bad taste and cheap ways"(paragraph 10). By mentioning his mother's "cheap" ways he is conveying that he is aggravated because of his mothers option to choose bad and ugly clothes in ord...
Malachy McCourt is the major antagonist; he is responsible for keeping his family poverty-stricken. The story begins with Malachy leaving Ireland, where he fought in the Irish army to come to New York, to keep from being assassinated. There he meets Angela, who has migrated from Limerick, Ireland, and gets her pregnant. Malachy from the start portrays the antagonist; he tries to leave New York to keep from marrying Angela, but drinks the money away. The cousins coercive Malachy into marrying Angela and he says, “Och, said Malachy, I wasn't planning to get married, you know. There’s no work and I wouldn’t be able to support…” (16) This may be a foreshadowing of his inability to be a husband and father. Throughout the entire book
“I lay awake at night, rubbing my feet with my hands, trying to warm them.” Jeanette (176) In this scene, Jeanette is trying to keep warm inside of their poorly insulated shack in Welch, West Virginia. She was forced to face a freezing winter with only a stove inside of their living room to keep warm. Another time she says: “We did eat less. Once we lost our credit with the commissary, we quickly ran out of food.” (67) This is the height of the hunger in the Walls family. Rex lost his job and had no money coming in. Jeannette tried not to complain but when she couldn’t keep it inside anymore and let one small word of complaint her mother replied with “It’s not my fault you’re hungry” P.(69). This is a good example for how neglectful Rosemary is. It is in fact her fault that they are hungry because it is her responsibility to take care of her children. This is a perfect segway to the next issue,
In ?Everyday Use?, Alice Walker chooses to develop the idea of poverty by focusing exclusively on the environment in which her protagonists live. Setting attributes, such as the ones used to describe the house in which the protagonists reside, enables us to better understand the theme. In fact, the dwelling does not even have any real windows. Instead, it has holes cut in the sides, like the portholes of a ship, but not round and not square, with rawhide holding the shutters up on the outside. Then, Walker proceeds with inside description of the house as she points out that the protagonists use benches for their table instead of chairs because they cannot financially afford any. Further, the author supports the theme by providing us with some physical description of specific objects. The use of quilts that ?Grandma Dee? sewed from the scraps of her dress and the churn that Uncle Henry whittled from the wood is not derived from the protagonists? intention to preserve ?family values? but rather from a necessity to ?survive?.
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,
The memoir, Angela’s Ashes, was written in 1996 by Frank McCourt. The memoir first took place in 1937 in New York City but the protagonist, Frank, and his family soon moved to Limerick, Ireland where most of the memoir took place. McCourt wrote this memoir different than most people would, he told it from the perspective of him as a child looking out onto the world instead of as an adult reflecting on his childhood. Angela’s Ashes received multiple national awards such as “Winner Of The Pulitzer Prize” in 1997, “Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award” in 1996, and “The Los Angeles Times Book Award” in 1996. The history behind Angela’s Ashes was it took place during The Great Depression. The Great Depression was a time period where