Preview

Angela's Ashes

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
445 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Angela's Ashes
Angela’s Ashes Book Review
8/27/12
Word Count: 432

“Angela’s Ashes” was a great book with outstanding writing. This memoir engages the reader and leaves the reader with their mouth opened wanting more. It was depressing though. He goes through extreme poverty, alcoholism, unemployment, getting hit by teachers, sickness, puberty, religion, and death. The narrator is Frank McCourt who is looking back at his childhood. This is a story of an Irish-American who was born in New York who goes back to Ireland with his mother, father, and four brothers after his new born sister’s death.
His life is not much different than many others still living today, which is something I liked about his story, was that I found some things in common with him. He is Catholic, he was on the dole which is government help, his father was unemployed, he has siblings, he’s the oldest, he wants to have fun, and wants to help out his family. I enjoyed that we had things in common, so I knew how he felt in some situations. His writing was outstanding! Except it was a little difficult to know when someone was speaking without quotations, and he uses words that are used in Ireland and Religion words, so it might be difficult to understand the vocabulary that is used. I really enjoyed the beginning even though some people started to make me mad. I didn’t enjoy when he starts to get to the part of his life when he is becoming a teenager it starts to get uncomfortable and really personal. It’s really sad though when he gets in his teen years because he isn’t so innocent any more, he knows things now that he knew he been lied to, such as where babies came from. He was told by his father that it was the ‘Angel from the Seventh Step’ who brought the baby but when he gets older he knows the truth.
Frank goes through so much that you wonder, “How can someone survive like this?” Sadly this a true story and has happened to other as well. It’s horrible to know that this is what happens to people and

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In Angela 's Ashes, Frankie McCourt learns to cope with his poverty from a very young age. When Frankie 's parents soon have more children, times get even harder for the family. After Frankie 's Grandma donates fare money for them to come to Ireland, they are overseas. Jobs are sparse in Ireland, too. Every job Malachy McCourt Sr. gets only last until the day he is late for work. Every week when the dole money comes from the government to support them, his Dad goes out and selfishly wastes it on liquor, continuing to leave his family with no money for food, beverage, or clothing. The "Angel on the Seventh Step" continues to contribute more members to the McCourt family. On top of a growing family, sickness constantly plagues them. During Hitler 's reign, jobs open up in England. In hopes of coming into some money, Frankie 's Dad goes to England for work. As the weeks go by, only one check is mailed to the family, and they know they are on their own again. Frankie begins to steal food and milk more frequently from local shops in Limerick. The day he is of age, he gets a steady job to support his family. The wages that once supported only his luxuries now have to support his family as well, because the charity that previously helped ceased giving them dockets. Only in his early teens, Frankie had to pick up the father role that his Dad had neglectfully left behind. Frankie thought his "father is like the Holy Trinity with three people in him, the one in the morning with the paper, the one at night with the stories and the prayers, and then the one who does the bad thing and comes home with the smell of whiskey and wants us to die for Ireland" (210). He never drank his money 's worth of pints like his Dad nor did he smoke the fags as his Mam did. He taught himself to be responsible. Frankie thought to himself, upon all of his troubles, "It 's lovely to know the world can 't interfere with the inside of your…

    • 709 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Today, my classmate Mickey Spellacy’s sister finally passed away. Mickey’s hope became real. Now Mickey can get a week off from school because of sister’s death. He seemed really happy today. However, he did not keep the promise. Mickey promised to Billy Campbell and me that if we pray that his sister will die in the middle of school term, he said he will invite us to his sister’s wake. It was so silly and wrong that Billy and I prayed that Mickey’s sister will not die before school starts, but still we prayed for Mickey. And I am so angry that he did not invite me to his sister’s wake. I prayed every night before I go to sleep during the summer vacation. Also what kind of brother prays that his sister…

    • 446 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Angela S Ashes SG DF

    • 5607 Words
    • 17 Pages

    10. What is ironic about Angela pointing out the landmarks as Frank’s family leaves New York?…

    • 5607 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Though the essay and the novel Angela’s Ashes are written in different time periods they still show the same theme of overcoming hardships throughout both. Just like Frank and his family face things that hinder their way of life, these same-sex couples…

    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    reality frank is a good person trying to be mature. Frank is one of the heroes of the story because he saves feather from a crime scene. When frank saves the person he risks his life. Sadly Frank doesn't make it through, but he had a good heart. Frank represents good hearted people that save or help others which are called heroes. Frank is the good of the story and it teaches you not to judge people by their'e looks or actions because they have good in the inside.…

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this hard world where winning is more important than participating you would sometimes almost forget to be generous from time to time. But when I read Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt I got a completely different view on generosity and the importance of it. This memoir is about the miserable Irish Catholic childhood of the writer. And I think that after this essay you will see that acts of generosity can make the lives of the poor better and that those people afterwards can also help other poor people.…

    • 1230 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There were many deaths in Angela’s Ashes. When Margret was born Malachy was able to bring food home. It was his only daughter and he was very happy, but when she died everything turned to the worst. Later Oliver one of the twins died. They dialed with many deaths in their family but every time it was harder, Oliver’s death caused depression in the…

    • 459 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hildegard of Bingen

    • 328 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Hildegard was the tenth child born of noble German parents in the province of Rheinhessen. During that time, it was not unusual for a family to offer up a child as a “tithe.” A sickly child, at the age of eight she was given to the care of her aunt, Blessed Jutta Von Spanheim, to live with her in her cottage next to a Benedictine monastery. This abandonment devastated Hildegard.…

    • 328 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Angela’s Ashes takes place in Limerick, Ireland during the 1930s. The main character, Frank, tries to find happiness, but it becomes a challenge due to poverty that has fallen…

    • 421 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Angela's Ashes Analysis

    • 465 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Angela’s Ashes gives me and surely other readers a feeling of hope. The way Frank McCourt presents his story and what the story tells teaches its readers a significant message. He did it in such an engaging way that the themes the story provides gets McCourt’s purpose through. It certainly is an excellent message from an excellent…

    • 465 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Upon receiving the Nobel Prize for his excellence in writing, William Faulkner expresses his dismay towards the writers of the day and laid out what he terms “the writer’s duty.” In his acceptance speech, Faulkner is disheartened by the fact that young writers continue to discuss “the end of man” in their work. Faulkner advocates that authors must make all efforts to “help man endure by lifting his heart.” Because man leads a difficult life, writers are obligated to use their work to uplift and inspire the reader’s sprit. In his memoir, Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt raises the reader’s spirits by illustrating that although one may have a reprobate nature, individuals always maintain redeeming qualities. Although his father drinks away any money that comes the family’s way, young Frankie explains his love for Malachy. Similarly, in her memoir, West with the Night, Beryl Markham motivates the reader to find a passion in life by portraying the relationship between a pilot and his/her flight tools. The two authors fulfill the duty that Falkner places upon them by using love and pride to place the reader in an uplifted frame of mind.…

    • 995 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    30 day immigration

    • 481 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Another part where Frank show sympathy was when the lady talks about her family and how it was losing her mom and dad in Mexico and not going to see them or going to their grave. She mentions that she would love to go back to Mexico go to their grave and apology’s for not being there when they needed her. Frank immediately though about his mother, what she been threw and what she had to go threw not going to Cuba to see them. Frank was so sensitive and so compaction in that screen.…

    • 481 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As everyday life goes on, human beings are constantly faced with challenges that require sacrifices. In Frank McCourt’s memoir titled Angela’s Ashes, he talks about the constant battles his family has with life. He faces issues that no child should have to deal with leading up to his adolescent years: deaths, poverty, hunger, and toil. McCourt titled this memoir as a tribute to remember his mother’s unremarkable suffering. His purpose demonstrates that regardless of the experiences one goes through, it is critical to understand that life must go on and recuperation is part of life. McCourt’s use of tone in the memoir is a perfect combination of bitter, but quite inviting to keep the reader absorbed. McCourt uses tactile, olfactory, and visual imagery to identify the challenges his family goes through; his purpose is for the readers to identify themselves in similar situations and to let them know everything will work out for the better in the end.…

    • 1012 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The MacNamara sisters said Angela was nothing but a rabbit and they wanted nothing to do with her till she came to her senses. Their husbands agreed”(19).…

    • 2532 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Part one: The author imagines himself an Englishman who has come to settle in America (in 1783). Through the eyes of this English settler, the author describes what he would see upon coming to America and how different it would be from Europe. Unlike in Europe, America has a far smaller gap between rich and poor and titles, based on class and honor, (such as prince, duke or lord) are non-existent. For the most part the people living in America are farmers and live in comfortable but modest houses. It is clear from the author’s words that he thinks America is great place to live.…

    • 316 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays