Week 7 Angela's Ashes Ashley Dillon

Right off the bat of today’s reading (Chapter 9) there is an example of religious prejudice. Frank’s mother says that she is through with having children. Frank’s dad says that if she was a good Catholic, she’d do her duty. This is just an example of religion versus reality. The McCourt’s’ really mustn’t have had so many children, but as a good catholic –well, you get the idea. At the end of the chapter, I really wasn’t surprised that Frank’s dad didn’t send the money in. if he didn’t do it in Ireland, where he could see his family starve, why would he in England? Asking for help at the dispensary was another example of prejudice against poverty. Angela wants her kids to look dirty so they would be more sympathetic towards her, which is what eventually causes her to get money even when their hopes looked glum. Then, Angela gets sick with pneumonia and the boys have to live with Aunt Aggie. That was horrible. She constantly looked down on them and had no regard for them whatsoever, especially for Frank, who so closely resembled his father-from-the-north. That whole entire part was extremely sad and full of example of prejudice against the poor. For example, Frank notices that the Jesuits are only nice to people who drive around in their cars and poke their little fingers up when drinking tea, i.e. rich people. They have no need for the poor. This is the first time Frank has blatantly said this. It has always been hinted but I think Frank is now finally realizing how the rest of the world treats him and others like him.

Blog Post Week 6 Jebediah Pritchard

Blog Post Week 6 Jebediah Pritchard Reaction to Ashley B

Catholicism plays a central role in the lives of the characters in Angela's Ashes.
In class it has been mentioned several times that the Irish don't or may not have national
pride, and as it was dispelled in class, that was a not good thing , well maybe. Something
that is national and is deeply engrossed in their lives is their religion. Catholicism is central to
all aspects of their lives. The youths attend religious schools, the weekends are managed around
church. The a rite of Catholic passage is mentioned in the reading. That of the ingestion of the blood and body of Christ. To not pass this rite is a horror and to pass is a further step into
the vestments of the body of the Catholic faith. That one, Frank, in our example will become further closer to God, further Catholic.

What if someone was not Catholic, did not believe in its message. Of course many of the people did , just that they say that they did believe, it was not the thing to do to not be Catholic. This is anti intellectualism and generalized backwardness. When the parting of the Catholics and the Protestants occurred, one was to have the ability to be Christian as one wanted, well it is well established that one could only be the type of Christian that your country followed, and not until our times have atheistic moments be met with less horrible results by the followers of the Cross.

Reaction to Ashley B

The Dad is without a generally speaking proper stable job, and it is mentioned that he is not dumb and could maybe seek better vocation. Well maybe. The life events that Malachy finds himself in are hard. He is not weak nor deficient, our environment plays a strong role in our lives. Having many children, having children die, having dis concordance with your wife, having bad jobs, in as much as working rather hard for low pay, these events to not entertain good tidings. Such experiences that the husband faces, as reinforced by the other husbands doing the same, serve to lessen a man a wear away at his spirit. To call the father weak, that is to say that the vast majority would be weak, given the common lot and common problems of the Irish people at the time.

Blog Post #6

Upon reading the book “Angela’s Ashes”, I am beginning to fall deeper into the book. This book is truly a classic modern memoir, but also funny and forgiving. Each week the readings grow more interesting, and I fall more in love with the boys. I think the best part about this book is the narrator, Frank, and that it comes from his perspective. I also notice that Frank is like his father in a way that they both are great story tellers. The father, Malachy, still is unemployed. What upsets me even more is Malachy is an educated smart man, and the fact that he still doesn’t have a job puts me in distraught. He continues to waste his money at the ‘pub’ even though his family is starving. The day Frank made his First Communion, and threw up his dinner was my favorite part in the book so far. His grandmother made him go to confession twice that day to find out what she should do with ‘God’ in her backyard. This just shows how religious people are in Ireland. His grandmother is insane, and I understand why their family doesn’t live with her anymore. I was really relived to know that Angela didn’t punish Frank for skipping school. She was too concerned about her old dance partner, Mr. Clohessy, who is deathly ill.
-Ashley B

Chelsey Cresap week 5

Even though we have only read the first two chapters of "Angela's Ashes" I can honestly say I enjoy it much more than "The Dubliners." The Dubliners was full of hidden meanings and told stories through metaphors and similes. Joyce went about his stories n a round about way, he never got straight to the point. "Angela's Ashes" s much more entertaining. It is easy o follow and understand. It is more of what I am used to.

There are obvious similarities between these to books. The themes all have to do with the downsides of Ireland. Already in just the first two chapters we see themes of alcoholism. Frank's father is an alcoholic. He sends the families money for food on his binge drinking but it is his only way to cope with them pain of his miserable life. There is also a theme of poverty. Frank and his family do not have enough money for food. The money that they did have the parents spent on cigarettes and alcohol. The family sleeps on the floor, they finally got one mattress that the whole family could share. It ended up having fleas on it though. Both books are very similar with these reoccurring themes.

Blog Post Week 5 Jebediah Pritchard

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.

Blog-Week 5

This week we started to read the book, “Angela’s Ashes”, and I have to admit this book is much better than “The Dubliners”. Although “The Dubliners” had a lot of valuable information, it just wasn’t my type of reading. These books have common themes involving Ireland, for instance; alcoholism is a major factor in both books, as well as characters acting in the same manner. Upon reading “Angela’s Ashes”, I feel that poverty is a major factor all over the world. This family in particular is in a very bad situation, and they literally have no money. I feel that Malachy, the father, is useless. He isn’t working, but when he does get a job he uses the majority of his money at the ‘pub’, or doesn’t show up to work, and gets fired. The mother, Angela, doesn’t care for her children properly, and as they continue to have children she gets more and more tired. Even though this family is in a bad circumstance, I still feel the parents could do more for their children. Frank, the oldest child of the family, seems to care for his brothers more than their own mother. As the story continues, they move back to Ireland, because they couldn’t stay where their beloved daughter died. The story goes downhill from here, and their twin boys, Oliver and Eugene die as well. This story is very depressing, but it has made me more appreciative for what I have.
-Ashley B

The Dead

After reading the dead, I had a couple of key points that stuck with me. One was the fact that this story incorporated just about every theme from previous stories. It covers the idea of Ireland’s “life span” and how it is turning out in that point and time. It also shows how people are adjusting to Ireland’s downfall. Many just blame other things, or do nothing to improve their situation. At first I thought Gabriel’s speach at the dinner table was finally a character realizing that their lives are valuable and worth working at to better the situation. After seeing his reaction to finding out about his wife’s former “pursuers”, Michael Furey, death and doing some research that it was at that time when Gabriel realizes that there is more then just living and dying. In his speech I think he made it seem like the past will not follow and they can just move on, but he realizes that it does follow you and in order to make a better life you have to change things. I think this was a good way of ending a book about never improving yourself. Finally someone had realized what must be done.

week 4

The last three stories we read were "A Mother", "Grace", and "The Dead". By the time I got to these stories I understood them more than the other ones. "A Mother" was about a mother who ruined her daughters career. Her daughter was playing in a concert but had not gotten paid. Because of this the daughters mother complains to the to men running the show which causes her daughter to get fired from the show. Therefor, ruining the daughters career for the rest of her life. In "Grace" a drunken man falls down a fight of stairs outside of a pub. The police are called but they do not seem that concerned neither does the mans friend who called the police. Later the man goes to talk to a priest about his sins but the priest does not seem forgiving. The man doesn't see how a whole life could be changed in one night by talking to a priest. "The Dead" was about love. Gabriel finds out that his wife was in love with another man before him. He had died waiting for her outside in the cold. Gabriel realizes that he does not love his wife as much as her first love did because he would not die for his wife. He has an epiphany and is the first one in these stories that realizes he is wasting his life away and needs to change things. If he doesn't make a change soon then his life will pretty much be worthless.

After reading The Dubliners I definitely am more educated about Ireland's history. I cannot say that I particularly enjoyed reading it but I learned a lot. It was interesting to read a different style of writing and it trying to understand it was very frustrating. In response to Jordan I agree. I felt that with almost every story you had to have background information to understand what was going on but we were not provided with that. I had to go to spark notes for every chapter to actually know what was going on and when I did not I felt as if I had no idea what we were talking about in class dicussions.

Jordan Wells - Week 4

After reading the Dubliners it is hard for me to tell if i like or dislike the series of stories. I felt like some of the stories were just not interesting at all. There were a select few that i enjoyed reading because they related to the world today. I liked how every story had some sort of epiphany in the story. I didn't like how the stories all had a negative aspect to them, i quess it's due to the time this book was written and Joyce's writting style. During this weeks reading, i liked reading "A Mother" more so than the other stories. Mrs. Kearney has a very practical view on life and she is used to being handed everything and usually gets what she wants. She ends up marrying her husband because she wanted her daughter, Kathleen, to receive a full payment for her performance. She did not marry him for love, it was more satisfaction for Kathleen. After reading "A Mother" it leaves you questioning about the integrity of Mrs. Kearney.

In response to Ashley,

I agree that the story "Ivy Day in the Commitee Room" is very confusing. I did not like how Joyce leaves it up to the reader to have backround knowledge on each character in the story. It made this story very difficult to read, as if the reader needs more difficulty reading these stories. I think there was just too many characters for a short story, there were too many characters to fully develope a sence of personallity. After reading this story i had to look up the summary on SparkNotes so i could get a better understanding of what exactly was going on. Even the SparkNotes was difficult to comprehend.

Blog Post Week 4 Jebediah Pritchard

Blog Post Week 4 Jebediah Pritchard

The story that was the most interesting to me this week was The Dead.
Not the whole story though. Most of the story was not to grand.
Though the last pages of The Dead were something very good.
These pages were pages written in the style of Poe and other such dark romantic authors.
James Joyce did not express dark romanticism until the final few pages of The Dead, in Dubliners. Gabriel loved his wife and wanted to be with her. Upon the moment, she tells him of her true love, her lost love. The love that had died early on, the love that had died for her.
To Gabriel this is crushing. Had she ever really loved him , as he had loved her. Or was he lesser a man than the man that departed breath for her. " His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead." This imaginary is haunting and grand.

Response to Ashley B Blog

Is there a theme in each story? Are these stories dark? There is a theme in every story and I believe that there is an overgrandizing of Joyce's themes and end story thoughts by the main character of each story are not epiphanies. The Dead is the only story that is dark to me and only the last few pages.

Blog Post- Week 4

Upon reading “The Dubliners” I have noticed a theme that is similar in each story. The stories all have their own epiphanies in the end, but each story is very dark and dramatic. My personal preference is the complete opposite of Joyce’s choice. If the stories were happy upbringings then I think that Joyce wouldn’t be able to get her point across about Ireland. My favorite story this week was “A Mother”. The mother in this story, Mrs. Kearney, seems to get what she wants most of the time but this time it only increases her own anger. First of all, she marries her husband just to be married, not for love. Then Mrs. Kearney goes about by taking her daughter, Kathleen, out of the concert she was to perform in, annoying everyone in the audience. Also, her mother had ruined Kathleen’s musical career. As I read this story I started to question myself about Mrs. Kearney’s circumstances. I also read, “Ivy Day in the Committee Room”. Ivy Day represents nationalist politician, Charles Stewart Parnell, who is remembered on this day. As I read this story I found myself very confused for most of the story. The reason for my confusion was because there were so many different characters. Joyce talked about these characters like we should have known who they were. Just like the rest of the short stories in “The Dubliners” this story represents problems that are occurring in Ireland.

-Ashley B

Jordan Wells Week 3

In the story "Counterparts" we meet Farrington who works as a copy man. To go along with Joyce's theme of the book, Farrington hated his job. Farrington is always thinking about drinking. He is a heavy alcoholic and is always thinking about his next drink. He leaves his job early so he can go to the pubs to drink. He uses the excuse that he is stressed out at work to help feed his alcohol addiction. Farrington does put up with abuse at his job. His boss abuses him, can't say he doesn't deserve it. This abuse leads him to taking out his stress and anger on his son. Of course, the drinking does not help his anger. There are many various themes and morals in this story. It is apparent that Ireland does have a major drinking problem. After reading the other stories is is also apparents that Ireland may have many other problems, and htey expect others to fix their problems. I liked this story more so than the other stories in this book. I feel like this story has stressed a major issue in our world today.

Blog 3

In this week's reading, I found more and more reoccurring themes. In the short story, "Counterparts", Farrington constantly dreams of drinking while at work. He fantasizes about drinking at the bars with his friends. His job is to make hand-made copies of important documents, which I think was a clever symbol Joyce decided to add. His job is based on duplication; everything is routine. That was how Ireland ran during that time. Farrington has a revelation, as do many other characters in The Dubliners, that his life is run by tradition. The watch that he gave away also made a lot of sense because he pawned it off for drinks. Time was thus released. Farrington's whole life is one big routine schedule. I definitely found this story to be the most dark and tragic of the stories we have read so far. There was a lot of anger, and it seemed pretty explicit.

Chelsey Cresap blog 3

In the story “Counterparts” Farrington worked as a copy man for Mr. Allyne. Farrington is not fond of his job at all. He is lazy and tends not to finish the work he has been asked to do. In this story Farrington goes decides to go to the bars and drink with his friends instead of copying a certain paper for his boss. I think Joyce was using this to show how Ireland was not motivated to do much back then. While Farrington is at work all he is thinking about it when or how he can get to a pub and he ends up leaving in the middle of the work day to go to the pubs. When he gets home from his “long” day at work he is stressed and maybe a little drunk. He notices that his son left the fire burning and he is not happy. He continues to beat his son and his son repeats “I’ll say a Hail Marry for you.” I think Joyce might have been trying to say that Ireland never takes direct action to fix their problems. They sit a wait for someone else to come along and fix it for them.

In the story “Clay” Maria is a very nice, not so attractive old lady. She volunteers all of her time to helping others. She goes over to her friend Joe’s house for dinner and she bring two cakes. She leaves one on the subway and gets very upset about it. Joe tries to tell her it will be ok but it doesn’t help. She doesn’t really have anything of her own to live for so she lives for others. That’s why she is so upset. At the end of the story Maria sings a song about love. This moves Joe to tears because she has no one to love or to love her. Also, she repeats a verse of the song on accident this symbolizes Ireland repeating themselves for years and years and how they can never break through to better themselves.

Jebediah Pritchard Blog Week 3

The story Counterparts was interesting to me. Farrington was a man who worked as a copied and hated his job. In the day on his life that we get a view of, he has gown out 5 times to get a drink. Which seems to be a lot. He rather hates his job and his boss. His boss being a physically small man who abuses him and Farrington being a rather large man taking the emotional abuse.
There is an interesting interaction at the end of the story. Farrington, angry and upset, goes home
to eat dinner and fines his son Tom there. He, at first is unable to recognize which son it is based upon the voice of the child, he mistakes Tom for Charlie. Farrington wants Charlie to make him dinner, as the mom is out and a scene erupts as the fire has gone out and Farrington views this as a call to beat his child Tom. This is a reversal of the previous situation for Farrington. Mr. Alleyne, Farrington's boss abuses him and now Farrington takes out his angry and physically abuses his son. A role reversal. A sad a pathetic display. Farrington is not too likable and a degenerate. A rather unfortunate state of affairs.

Week 2

After reading the stories from this week, I got more into the Dubliners. There's always re-occuring themes in these short stories. In "After the Race," Jimmy's father basically fosters Jimmy's social status. Like many characters in The Dubliners, Jimmy has a moment of revelation in which he recognized the truth of his situation but does nothing about it. It is ironic how he knows he will regret playing poker the next day, but it is actually already daylight of tomorrow. What I got out of "After the Race" was that Ireland always finishes in last place. In "Two Gallants," the two main characters are pretty much "playing Ireland". Lenehan yearns for a comfortable,settled down life, and he's so desperate for money, he ends up duping maids with his friend Corely. There is a constant worry for betrayal, which is another reoccuring theme throughout the book. I like how the themes keep popping up, it is interesting to catch them as we read.

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Chelsey Cresap Blog Week 2

This past week we read the two short stories "After the Race" and "Two Gallants." These two stories had a similar messages, both having to do with the main characters recognizing the truth about their lives but the choose to go on and do nothing about it. Jimmy in "After the Race" is playing a disasterous game of poker. He gambled away all of his money and thinks to himself he is going regret this in the morning. He then realizes the sun has already come up and he feels no different. This symbolizes Ireland realizing they need to change but nobody ever does anything about it. In "Two Gallants" two men make a living by getting girls to steal for them. These men are low lives, both shallow and shady. They do not have strong ambitions for life and basically depend on everyone else for their success. This story is ironic because it is called "Two Gallants" and the two men are not gallants at all. Through out all of the short stories in The Dubliners the messages all seem to be the same. There is symbolism for Ireland, how the are a basically a disgrace of a country and how they need to better themselves. Joyce contantly refers to the lack of change, just how he did by Jimmy in "After the Race." He also refers to Irelands laziness and lack of ambition to better their own country as he shows again in "Two Gallents." After reading over all the blogs a lot of them sound very similar to mine. In response to Jordan I agree. I thought I would get used to his style of writing but I haven't. I never fully understand what the stories truley mean until we talk about them in class. It is very difficult to decode all of the hidden meanings and stabs towards Ireland.

Response to Leah,

I agree with you when you say that all the stories (that we have covered in class) have bad endings, and really lead to nothing. It makes it difficult to read through these stories because they are rather boring and i feel that while i am reading i am just looking for Joyce's method of revealing some sort of symbolism. I have to go back and re-read various paragraphs because i am too focused on searching for the meaning rather than the story itself.

JORDAN WELLS - WEEK TWO

This week we had to read "After the Race" and "The Two Gallants." I thought that these two stories were more difficult to read than the previous stories we read last week. Each story leads to a moral in the ending, sometimes i hard to catch the meanings due to Joyce's writing style. In "After the Race" we learn the differences of other countries through symbolism given within the peronalitly traits of the characters. I didn't really understand the symbolism after reading, the story lead to nothing, leaving it very confusing for me to understand. In "The Two Gallants" these two men, with very little values, use women to steal for them. These two men are low class people and there actions are disturbing.