Angel's Ashes by Frank McCourt
Genre: Memoir (true story)
Settings- New York in the neighborhood of Limerick. .
Time Period: Early 1900's (Roosevelt Era) and (Great Depression)
Character List:
Angela Sheehan- The narrator's mother (full-time mom)
Malachi McCourt- The narrator's father (drunk and provider)
Philomena Flynn and Delia Fortune- Angela's cousins that like to butt in her life.
Francis- first born son (most likely the narrator of this story)
Young Malachy- middle child
Oliver and Eugene- surprise twins
Margaret- only baby girl
Themes:
Religion- The Roman Catholic Church is mentioned more than ever in this story. People talk about praying to various saints for certain purposes. Angel's cousins talk about how religious they are versus Malachy, who is from Northern Ireland and more likely to be a Protestant.
Alcoholism- This all started with alcohol. Francis, their first born, was conceived because of the consumption of alcohol. The father has a drinking problem and tends to spend more of his money on booze than his family.
Poverty- This theme goes with the alcoholism because the father is the provider and yet he spends his money on alcohol, so his family will get barely anything. They are low on food and clothing.
Symbols:
Margaret (Baby Girl)- After Margaret was born, McCourt dropped his drinking and became the best provider for his entire family. Margaret was his little miracle. He absolutely loves his little girl and spends more time with her than any of his other children. When she dies unexpectedly, Malachy returns to his old self.
Depression- This theme can also go with Margaret because before she passed away, everyone was happy. Then when she didn't wake up and was taken from them, the mother and the father just went down in a deep depression. Malachy went back to drinking, and Angela stopped eating and started to blame herself for the premature death.
Motif:
Generosity- Everyone tries to help this family whether it is a storekeeper giving away free food, or the neighbor feed them and clothing them for no price at all.
Plot Summary: Chapter 1
The story starts out talking about the origins of the narrator's mother and how she met the father. Angela was born in New York and came from a neighborhood called Limerick, while the Malachy was born in Northern Ireland and later moved to New York. Angela and Malachi both meet in a bar, and he gets her pregnant. Angela's cousins scold Malachy and force him to marry her. He marries Angela and they have a baby boy named Francis. After promising her cousins that she will not have anymore children, later she has another son named after his father. Then soon a miracle happens and Angela gives birth to twin boys. The father always tries to find a job, but every bit of money he earns, he uses it to buy booze. This family suffers much poverty because the father is the only one working. Eventually they have a baby girl named Margaret and everything changes in their lives.
This little baby girl changes Malachy. He went to work, brought home money for food, and stopped drinking. This little bundle of joy changed his life. However, the neighbors were getting worried about the children and that they were not getting enough of food and they have very few resources. So they start to help Angela by bringing food and helping take care of the kids. Unfortunately, little Margaret did not live past seven weeks old, and the father regressed back to his drinking. He didn't show up for a long time and Angela started to fall down into a deep depression, leaving the neighbors to take care of all of them. Whenever Malachy comes back, he is usually drunk and wakes up his sons, and makes them say stupid things like "Will you die for Ireland?" Angela tries to look for Malachy, but then he loses his job. Later, the cousin's make a visit telling her Angela how worried they are. One of her cousins, Philomena writes to Aunt Margaret, hoping to get tickets so that Angela and her children can go to her homeland and make a better life for themselves.
Journal Friday January 6, 2012
I remember someone talking about this book in AP English. I saw that I had this book at home and I decided to read it. In this story, I have pointed out some major themes including: Religion, Alcoholism, and Poverty. The major symbols were Margaret (death of baby girl) and Depression, we have one motif which is Generosity.
Religion is talked about frequently in this book or referred to on every other page. In the beginning there is talk about saints. I am a Catholic and I learned more about saints in this book than I do at Catechism. I learned that Saint Anne is the patron of difficult labor, and St. Jude is the patron saint of desperate causes. The cousins who think they are all that, talk about Catholicism versus Protestants. They talk about how low Malachy's morals are, and how he drinks too much. I actually think of this as more of a contradiction because Catholics are more likely to drink, but that is just my opinion.
Alcohol is expressed as the anti-depressant in this story. It is the reason for all the problems in the story. Malachy has this drinking problem and he tends to not think when he's drinking. Some things that happen because of his poor choices are getting a girl pregnant, having to get married, and try to support a family. He spends more money on his booze than his family. Of course you have to know that this was Prohibition and everyone was drinking alcohol illegally. The reason alcohol was forbidden because everyone was thinking about the crime rates, family abuse rates, and the violence rates. If you pay attention to the beginning, Malachy was getting involved in some dangerous things because he was in the IRA, always had trouble getting along with Englishmen, and was always wanted by someone for doing something illegal or misconduct. Today, alcohol is legal everywhere for ages 21 and over, but some families face the problem of a binge drinker or a young drinker.
I know there had to be some reason why Malachy started drinking. He probably started drinking as more of a conforming issue and then he started doing it for fun. The symbol I would like to point out to you is the tragic death of his baby girl Margaret. Before this little girl was born, he was an alcoholic and spent more of his time at the bar, than with his own family. Then after she comes into the world, everything changes. It is amazing how one little thing baby can change the way the person acts. This little girl was a miracle to this family. Margaret, even though a baby, made her father rethink his life and devote more of his time providing for the family and spending time with her. Then after she died, everything went downhill.
Poverty is well known in this novel. This theme goes with the consumption of alcohol because he is spending more money than taking in more money. The husband's binge drinking leaves his family of five kids and a wife penniless. That money should be used to pay for food including milk for the children so they don't have to drink sugar and water because that is not healthy for them. Angela can only buy food if she has enough money. The children are not getting enough food and most of the time go to bed hungry. They also live in poor conditions and their clothes and diapers are in terrible shape. These diapers were cloth and they had to washed every night.The way it was described washing those clothes was not very pretty.
This reminds me of the UNICEF commercials and the Christian Children's Fund commercials.You always see a sad child walking on dirt with no shoes, raggedy clothes, and no food. It just warms your heart to know that there are people out there giving money to these organizations to help.The one and only Motif for this chapter is Generosity. It seems that there have been people watching this family. The neighbors bring food to the children, they clothe them, and they take care of them. The neighbors are so nice to the kids that they fascinate about having these ladies as their own mother. That is very sad. Another thing that caught my eye was when Frank stole bananas food stand for his brother. He worries that he will get in trouble with the owner, but it turns out that the guy does have a soft spot inside and he gives Francis a bag a fruit for his family.
The major themes in this story were Religion, Alcoholism, and Poverty, The symbols were Margaret and Depression, and the motif was Generosity. The Religion part of this story just basically shouts "Catholic". It talks about the religious ceremonies such as baptisms, Holy days of obligation,not eating fish on Fridays. This is a negative message towards protestants. Most of all to Malachy because the cousins believe that he ruined Angela's life. The Alcoholism and Poverty themes also speak for themselves because it is like the reason you are poor is because you spend your money on booze and not food for your family. The symbols show more of the meaning behind Malachy's ability to drink and not drink. Margaret was his reason to stop drinking and then when she was gone, he started again. She was his non-substance anti-depressant. Depression could combine with the death of Margaret because she caused the mom and the dad to lose themselves. The only motif was Generosity and I believe that was the best thing because many people were helping these kids, It was like almost the entire community started making their life a little bit easier.
Next Week:
I am thinking of talking a little more about this author because I am not quite familiar with his works.
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