Angela's Ashes; My opinion
Frank McCourt, the author of Angela's Ashes, is a Pulitzer prize winner. After reading only an excerpt of this story, I was so engaged with it, I decided that I will purchase his book. He captured my interest because he wrote his story to the point. I chose to write about this excerpt because I felt I owed him an apology and if anyone wants to read about him and wonders if they should, I am here to give my opinion. I usually do not find reading about people's lives is interesting; however, this is a book that could be turned into a movie. I have read a few books that made me wonder who the author knew to get the book published. Even though I did not read the beginning or end of the book, I was able to follow what was going on. He explains everything in a realistic way. His writing style shows that he is a great story teller who does not have to use words and phrases that make the reader come up with their own conclusions.
Frank is about seven years old during World War Two, living in Southern Ireland. His family was very poor, living off the "dole"; which we call welfare. They were outcasts because not only did they move back to Ireland from Brooklyn, his father is from the North and insists on holding on to the accent and dressed in a certain way that made him an outsider. Angela, his mom is the one who goes to the church to get what they need. She is able to do what she needs to do for her family even though she hates it and is put through changes. She is a great mother because she thinks about her children first. She had five children and three of them died. His brother Malachy is about five. The excerpt takes place from right before Christmas, until after Easter. At seven, he was able to see how his father was just there and it was his mom who got things done.
Angela is very miserable living in their small home by the school, so they move to another. This one, which is spacious has a name for them. He says, "The houses are called two up, two down, two rooms on top, two on the bottom." They are excited by the roominess of it. He claims, "We can walk from room to room and up and down the stairs. You feel very rich when you can go up and down the stairs all day as much as you please." For Frank, he feels that things are not as bad as they were since they were moving from a small, claustrophobic place to this house at the end of the block with not only four rooms, but with stairs. The only downfall to moving is that now they are further from school. Which is alright with him.
Angela goes to the church for furniture and were sent to a secondhand shop for a table, two chairs, and two beds. They had to bring home the furniture by themselves, They did not have any modes of transportation or a way to get the stuff delivered to them, it is left up to their own devices to get the furniture to their new home. As heartbreaking as it was for Angela to use her deceased twins' stroller, which they called s "pram", that is how they were able to transport everything from one end of Limerick to the other in a day. She is very grateful for the furniture, except she express her worries of using a bed that someone who had the "consumption" died in. I was able to feel her pain of losing her twins and then using their carriage to move to another home because there was no other way. She was concerned that the beds would have any contagious diseases that could inflict her family. The man from the second hand store, spoke to her with no compassion and reminded her she was getting the furniture through charity. he actually said, "I am sorry, but beggars can't be choosers." There was not a thing he was sorry about. Angela was being a concerned mother who already lost three children. He could have spoken to her respectfully, especially in front of her children; however, it seemed he was disrespectful because he could, and the bigger the audience the better.
After setting everything up in the house and the four of them drinking tea, enjoying the new house; they find out that they live next to the lavatory the whole block of eleven families share and no one is assigned to clean. Their awful discovery happens when a man who threw his bodily waste bucket in the lavatory, Angela inquires about what he is doing. She was astonished to find out that not only eleven families will be throwing their waste under her window, no one cleans it. After everything she went through to move in, she wants out right away. Frank shows how as strong as a woman his mother was, she felt beaten. She realized that this is it for them. Her husband was not the man she thought he was. He claims they will keep the lavatory clean until she brings him back to reality, when she inquires where they would get coal or turf to boil water.
The one thing his father attempted to contribute to the home, he ruined. Being a Catholic family, his father salvaged a picture of the Pope. Leo the thirteenth from the garbage in America.. His claim was,"this Pope was the working man's friend." He wanted it up where everyone could see it. Especially people from the church. Appearance, regardless of how it really was, meant everything to him. Being a proud man, he would not go to a neighbor he did not know, no less, to borrow a hammer.He decided to put the picture up himself with a jam jar and broke it. Cutting his hand, he got blood on the picture. As he wrapped his hand with a dish towel, he tells Angela to wipe the blood off the pope. Because she was wearing wool, the blood smeared rather than soak up. He blamed Angela for the ruined picture. After the stressful and exhausting day she just had,she let him know she did not care about the picture and that he was useless.
Dad was born in the North of Ireland and feels that speaking or dressing like a Limerick man, which is where they live at this point, is beneath him. He is unable to find work because once the foreman hears his accent, they pass him up for someone who has a Limerick accent. Even with his wife's pleading, he refuses to change for the sake of his family's well being. In front of his children he expresses his disdain for being in Limerick and how his sons have this accent.
Every weekday, he gets up early,shave, attaches studs and a collar to his shirt, wears a tie and a cap whenever he goes anywhere; especially when he goes to the Labour Exchange to sign for the dole. He feels he has to be prepared in the event there is a job for him regardless of what it may be. Frank says about his father, "He will never leave the house without collar and tie. A man without collar and tie is a man with no respect for himself." Appearances is everything to him,regardless of what other people feel about him and his peculiar ways. He does not carry any packages either. He told Frank and Malachy that when they get older, they should always wear a tie, collar, and never let anyone see them carry anything. They must have dignity. He sends his wife to the church to get the extras they need because the dole is not enough.
When dad does get some work at a farm, he would never ask for any of the fruits or vegetables. Then he goes to the pub and drinks his pay away. He feels that it is alright to do that since he worked for it. He would sing loudly through the streets about the North. After Christmas, when she had her son Michael, two gentlemen were sent from the church to make sure they are truly in need of their services. After looking around how they were living, they were disgusted by the lavatory and how they were forced to live upstairs while the downstairs flooded out. They asked him if he worked and why couldn't he work, which put him in a foul mood. Angela asked them for boots to give the boys, in front of him, and he was embarrassed even more. She was told she had to wait on line like everyone else, even though she just had a baby and was not feeling well. The whole visit put him off so when Malachy wanted to show where the Angel left Michael on the step, dad told him not now. He told her to not beg because he could fix their shoes. He sent Frank to the neighbor's to borrow the hammer and got a tire. He put a piece of the tire on the bottom of the shoes and made the shoes look worst. There was a flapping to it that caused him to make noise when he walked. He and his brother did not want to go to school because the shoes made them trip and as the extra tire flap in the front and back. They actually thought it was better not to have shoes at all. The Master of the school put the teasing to an end. They finally got their boots a few weeks before Easter.
For Christmas, they got a voucher to go to the butcher for a Christmas dinner. The butcher lets her know that a docket from the church will only her, black pudding and tripe or she can choose either sheep or pig's head and decide quickly because the pig's head is going rapidly. He adds how he suspects that in America, there would have been steak and a variety of poultry for them. Now they are back in Ireland and getting a docket from the church, this is what you get; like it or leave it. It would make no difference to him. With all her frustration, she lets him know what he is doing is not right for Christmas. He takes the pig head down, where Malachy suddenly claims," the pig looks like a dead dog," The tension broke and everyone laughed. Having a change of heart, the butcher gave her sausages in order to eat it for Christmas morning.
As I read the story, I have to remind myself that he is only seven and his brother, even younger. He is a good kid because he is able to see his mother's heartbreak and he never complains about having to do anything that is asked of him. Because her back was hurting, he had to carry the head home and the newspaper kept breaking away until the pig's head was in the open. Kids he knew made fun of him, but he let it go. The anger towards his father is clear at this point. His mother is not feeling well, he is exhausted, and his brother is too small to help him carry this heavy pig. He wants this walk to end as quickly as possible and realizes that regardless if his dad was there, there would not be anything different about this situation because he would never carry a pig's head. Infact, when they get home to his father comfortable, smoking, and listening to the radio, his father tells his mother what a disgrace it was that Frank was made to carry the pig. He is obliviant to his role in all of this.
Christmas day still had problems. The young boys were sent to Road to look for coal and turf. Since everyone would be home for the holiday, they were able to find coal and turf and as they were filling their borrowed bag ran into someone named Pa Keating who was distraught that they did not have enough coal to cook their dinner. They get real coal from a pub and have to drag the bag all the way home. Again, they are made fun of because they are so dirty from the coal. Finally, after a nap, they had Christmas Dinner.
Before Christmas, there was a leak in the kitchen and all the furniture was brought upstairs. Dad called upstairs Italy and downstairs Ireland. That seemed to lighten the mood. They are told an Angel brings their brother Michael. Frank used to wait for the Angel because his mother told him that the Angel does not forget the baby, he comes back to make sure the baby is happy. The innocence that children have is special. Dad asked him why does he sit at the staircase in the night." The question made no sense to Frank because he was the one who told him about the Angel in the first place. I told him one night that I was waiting for the angel, and he said, Och, now Francis, you're a bit of a dreamer."
In the Spring, they finally get to back downstairs. Once again, they have use of the whole house. After Easter, dad finally got a job in Limerick. Its a cement factory three miles out of town. Everyday, he has to walk six miles a day. Angela shows feelings for him. She feels bad that he has to walk so far. She is happy she can start paying everyone she owes back and she will no longer have to go to the church for charity. His dad calls it begging and shameful. Once again, on payday, his first Friday getting paid for a weeks work, he ends up at the bar. All day, the boys were excited to get their penny and Angela waited and waited for her husband to come home. As other husbands came home to eat and then go to the pub, the women went to the cinema. When she saw everyone coming home from an evening out, she knew that once again, she would be let down.
They know he wasted his money and go to bed. They are able to hear their mother cry and that breaks them. Though Frank wants that penny, he does not go downstairs for it. Malachy claims he does not want it and so does Frank. Angela sends him downstairs to sleep it off because she is disgusted with him. They have to go back on the dole because he overslept and missed his job.
As Frank told his story, he did not blame his parents for anything. He did not have an easy childhood, yet he made the best of what he had. He shows the reader what it was like living in Ireland at that time. How they were ridiculed by everyone because of their situation. They left Ireland, and came back. They lived in Belfast, Dublin, then Limerick after Brooklyn. His father could not make it any of these places. He has a way of writing that the reader could picture two little boys carrying coal on Christmas, or trying to walk with tire rubber on the bottom of shoes and taking them off before school. The disappointment Angela has in her husband. the way his dad tries to keep an air of superiority even though he is on the dole while the other men are working. Going to the library is the one way he shows his sons the importance of knowing what is going on in the world.
I can see why this book was a bestseller. Frank's writing is informative and to the point. There were no guessing of what he was thinking about when he wrote this book. It is self explanatory which is a nice way of reading any story. He tells you in his book the facts about what it was like to grow up in Ireland in the 1940's. It is easy to imagine what it was like to be him.He is not looking for pity even though it was hard for me not to feel bad for the children and his mother. It was easy to feel some frustration with his father. That is what a good book does to me, I am able to get involved with the characters. The story flows in a chronological order. I cannot wait to read this book.
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