Angela's Ashes is a departure of sorts from Dubliners. The style of Dubliners is harder to grasp, to gain a firm hold upon. Angela's Ashes , it seems to be an easier read. Well for some people. The short length of the stories in Dubliners, while themselves multi layered, were more towards my liking. Angela's Ashes is descriptive and well written, though the length is a source of contention for me, personally. Angela's Ashes is hard and sad and rough hwuen. Not that Dubliners was not , just the two books approach me with a different gesture.
There is a scene where the father wakes the boy up and says we will pay them a nickel for everyone who promises to die for Ireland. This is a distributing scene. Malachy senior then sings a song, about Canada. A land that England had gained through conquest as a colony. Ireland, was wholly part of the Crown at that time, though the troops deployed to fight in the New World , especially in Canada were mostly British, especially English. Malachy is singing and praising a new land, Canada and relating to his own, though it is not Ireland's land ,nor was it ever. Canada was always British and the analogy he uses with Canada for his sons to die for Ireland is wrought in folly. As in so common throughout this book and similar Irish propaganda, is to say they hate England, while seeking after the fruits of English labour.
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I found that Angela’s Ashes a lot easier to read than The Dubliners. The Dubliners was really confusing, there were a lot of metaphors that James Joyce had to use do to the time period and in Angela’s Ashes it’s a story about Frank McCourt’s life so it’s a lot easier to read. I found a few similarities already in the first couple chapters of Angela’s Ashes. I found for one thing the poverty issue in Ireland during this time. Frank McCourt states that when he is in Ireland and in New York he is really poor and can’t afford much. Another similarity I found between the two is the alcoholism in Ireland. In Angela’s Ashes the dad I s an alcoholic. Even though the family is poor, the money that they do get he spends on alcohol. Like in the Dubliners it seemed like every dad was a drunk. I feel kind of bad for Frank McCourt because his life is really bad. His dad is an alcoholic who spends their money on beer and they live in a really small house. It’s amazing to me to see a man who has a life like this write a book and get famous like he did.
ReplyDeleteAs we begin reading “Angelas Ashes,” we see many themes of Ireland that are carried over from “The Dubliners.” Alcoholism is a big factor in “Angelas Ashes.” Malachy does not have a job for the most part of the first two chapters, and when he does find a job, he spends all his money in the pubs. Meanwhile his kids are at home starving. Their teeth are rotting from the sugar water, and they have no clean clothes because of the lack of money. Angela is also to blame for how her home and her kids are. The babies are always dirty, according to Frank’s memories. His mother tells him to take care of Malachy and the twins, when he is no older than four years of age. He is not responsible enough to be doing this, meanwhile his mom is at home sleeping and his dad is in the pub. It is sad to see a child having such a responsibility. He should be a kid, having fun and playing with his friends. Although Angela has lost so much in the earlier parts of this story, she should have realized that she still had other children to take care of. Without her they were basically taking care of themselves while she mourned over the loss of her other children.
ReplyDeleteLeah Scabilloni
While reading angela’s ashes, I find it a little hard to follow because of how the book is written. I feel like the dialogue is written as one big run-on sentence and all of the “he says, she says” in the middle of all the dialogue is a little irritating and unnecessary. The mood of the story so far still seems depressing and anti nationalistic toward Ireland, like the Dubliners. The dislike between the north and the south of Ireland only divides the country more, and creates more dislike of the country by the Irish. Starting off the book with saying how the family should have stayed in America rather than moving back home to Ireland already gives the reader a strong sense of the dislike of Ireland. By saying that the siblings died because of the fact that they moved back to Ireland, is a strong assumption and dislike for the country. I think that having the story be told by one of the children and hearing his perspective of everything is more interesting than the Dubliners; also, having a continuous story with more substance and detail was more interesting to read than Joyce’s hidden meaning short stories that at first thought seem to have to do with nothing at all.
ReplyDeleteBrittni Stump
This was the first week of reading Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, and we read the first two chapters. There already a lot of similarities to Dubliners emerging from the text in reference to the time period and conditions of Ireland. Frank’s family is poor and his father has a drinking problem and is out of work. These were all reoccurring themes in different stories from Dubliners as well. While I did enjoy some of the stories from Dubliners, I find Angela’s Ashes a lot easier to read and not as dull or confusing as some of the stories in the Dubliners. The dialogue in this text is also fairly easy to follow, even though no quotation marks are used. Depression is another theme from both books that can be seen already in Angela’s Ashes. Frank’s youngest sister dies and it has devastated both of his parents. In my opinion, the most touching part of the first two chapters is when the police help the McCourt family when they have absolutely no money and nowhere to sleep after moving back to Ireland. It was almost painful to imagine how Angela and Malachy must have felt not being able to offer anything to their own children. So far, this book has made me very thankful for the childhood I was able to experience.
ReplyDeleteStephanie Iams
I also concur that Angela's ashes is a much easier read and requires much less mental power to try to comprehend all the sublime comments made in the Dubliners. Even though it is an easier read, I still do have my questions about it. How is it that Frank McCourt can remember all those details from when he was so young? I can not even remember what I had for breakfast today, yet alone what I had to eat as a kid when I was 6. As I am reading this story that question keeps arising into my mind. He says this is a true story, but I do have my doubts about certain parts of it. How much does he truly remember, and what do his parents aunts remember. In the play that was made of this book, his mother strongly disagreed with parts of it and said it happened differently. This poses the question in my mind if he just wrote the book on how "he thinks" it happened. If so, how can this truly be considered a non-fiction book if parts of it are just figments of the writers imagination of how it happened to him?
ReplyDelete-Jason Hallman
This has been our first assigned week of reading Angela’s Ashes and so far I agree with the other posts of enjoying this book more than the Dubliners. Not only is the language easier to understand, but it is an entire story, rather than broken up short stories. There is much more to read, though, because the chapters are so long. Many of the Irish themes carry over from the Dubliners, such as the Irish being behind the curve and constantly a step behind. Like what was said in class, when compared to Angela’s Ashes the Dubliners was not that far off from the truth even though it was fictional. One of the things I like most about this book is the way it was told from a young boy’s perspective. Because it is told from a younger narrator’s point of view I believe that it is easier to understand than if this story was being told from an adult’s who’s language would be more difficult to understand. One thing that caught my attention was how excited the kids were to be able to run up and down the stairs in their new house in chapter 3, saying that it made them feel rich to have their own stairs.
ReplyDelete-Victoria Hampton
“Angela’s Ashes” is so much easier to comprehend than the “Dubliners.” It is not a bunch of short stories that intertwine with one another so you do not have to pay attention to small details. Also, Frank McCourt did not have to hide what he wanted to say in his text like was done in the “Dubliners.” On the first page of the story Frank comes straight out and talks about his father being an alcoholic. Even though there is such a difference in the styles or writing you see many of the same themes occurring in both books. Although the “Dubliners” is a fictional story it accurately describes what Ireland was like. The reoccurring themes are alcoholism, nationalism and poverty. It is a lot easier to comprehend “Angela’s Ashes” because everything is just said how it was instead of hiding it in the text. “Angela’s Ashes” by far is more favorable to read than the “Dubliners.”
ReplyDeleteWhen reading the story I was not surprised by much because the “Dubliners” helped get me used to how Ireland was. I was surprised though about how even though they were living in the states the father was still an alcoholic and still extremely nationalistic.
Nick Romus
After reading the first two chapters of Angelas Ashes i can honestly say that i enjoy reading this book over The Dubliners. This book is much easier to understand. There are no hidden messages in every chapter of the book which makes it for a nice enjoyable read. Angelas Ashes also shows the struggles that Ireland was having. The first two chapters are about Frank and his family and how they had the struggle of having to to move from Ireland to America to back to Ireland. They had little to no money and any money they did have Frank's father would spend it on drinking. But, so far i really enjoy reading Angelas Ashes, i look forward to reading what the next chapters have in store.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the first four chapters in Angela’s Ashes, I find like this book compared to The Dubliners. The writing style is just a lot easier to read and it is less confusing. It seems modern, even though it is not. The death of Oliver was very sad to me. Eugene was so miserable. Being a twin myself I would be simple catatonic if my sister died. It was almost a relief when Eugene died as well. He could go be with his brother. When Margaret died, that was the saddest part for me because the child died, and the father took it hard. He started drinking and just all around be a selfish human being. Doesn’t he realize that he had two or more kids to take care of? Be a man. What I want to know is why they went back to Ireland. Couldn’t they see that things were going to get better? Frank even mentioned how FDR was going to get them all jobs and out of the depression. Did they honestly think Ireland was going to be any better, the land of rain and consumption? I liked the new house. Having the toilet for the whole entire street is a HUGE downside; the fact that they call the upstairs ‘Italy’ is cute.
ReplyDelete