Angela's+Ashes+AJ+B.

Journals

Pages 1-90

This story starts out with young Frankie McCourt talking about his mom and dad, Angela and Malachy. In the beginning Malachy gets Angela pregnant and is forced to marry Angela by her two sisters, Philomena and Delia Flynn. This marriage is highly criticized because Malachy is a protestant from the north and Angela is a Catholic from the south of Ireland, which is a long running feud. The child Angela is pregnant with is our narrator, Frankie, originally named Male by his drunkard father’s mumble to the clerk but soon there after when Male was baptized they changed his name to Francis. A year down the road Angela is pregnant with another son; this one is named Malachy after his father. This story is taking place during the great depression in New York and that makes it hard for his father to get a job and whatever he does make gets spent on “The Drink”. This deprived family is now living on a minimal amount of income, barely even enough to feed Frankie and Malachy and this stress is compounded by Angela getting pregnant once again, but this time with twin, Oliver and Eugene. Soon when the Flynn sisters come to visit they realize the atrocities the family has been living in and for a while helps the family with the assistance of Mrs. Leibowitz and Minnie, neighbors in the building. They help them clean, cook, and even change the twin’s diapers. But then things for the McCourts get even harder when Angela is expecting once more but this time with her long overdue wish for a beautiful baby girl, Margaret. Soon though the living conditions are to harsh still for any baby to survive and Margaret gets sick and dies which is devastating to the family also because while Margaret was around their father was not drinking and were getting all the wages they needed to survive but with the depression of the young baby only a few weeks old, he takes the next weeks wages and spends them in the pubs and coming home and waking the boys about to make them swear to protect Ireland. That is until the Flynn sister are fed up and write their mother, in Ireland, a letter explaining how horrid the situation is. After that they give the family the bus fair to take them and their trunk to the boat and they return to their parents homeland of Ireland. There arrival in the homeland was not very welcome when introduced to Malachy McCourt’s family they are quick to get them food but there reception to the extended family was poor and barely even gestured to the boys and Angela when they were introduced for the first time. When grandpa says that they don’t have space for them to stay they take the train to Dublin to see if they could get money from the IRA from Malachy’s service in the olden days but he is no longer in the “Big Book”. Broken and scared the families is invited to a police station by a guard so they have a warm play to sleep and the police feel bad for them so they start a fund so they can go to Limmedia type="youtube" key="iMAmtTBqWb4" height="390" width="480" align="left"erick to stay at Angela’s mothers where the reception was the same and they had the samereason they had to leave and find their own place tolive. When they make it to their new home they fight battles with Fleas, the bottle, and unfortunately once again, Death. After of a good few years Oliver died of the sickness and after soon there after Eugene gets pneumonia and dies sending the family into an emotional hole and sends Malachy back to the pubs spends the week’s wages. So far reading about how horrid things were during this time period due to the economy frightens me because we are currently in the midst of a recession and people could easily be put into similar situations as the McCourts. Although this memoir is so far very raunchy, it truly is necessary for the foul language because I think it really brings the emotion out in the character and makes it much more realistic.


 * Irish “Dole”
 * Roosevelt’s Presidency and policies to create jobs
 * Pubs
 * Irish slang
 * Great depression living conditions
 * Ireland’s economy during the 1930’s
 * Additional Info.

Pages 91-151

At the beginning of this section, the McCourts move into a new home on Roden Lane at the top of Barrack Hill. They move because of Angela’s horrid memories of Eugene climbing around their old house searching for Oliver after he died. They soon realize that the move was a bad decision because the first day the  y are there, they find out their home is right next to the public lavatory for the entire block, so whenever it rains a flood of disgusting sludge flows into their house. This becomes an often occurrence because they move in winter which in Ireland is the rainy season. Their downstairs soon is so constantly flooded that one day when Frankie comes home everything is moved from downstairs to upstairs and when he asks his father what had happened and he explains but eases the news by saying that they should call the upstairs area “Italy” because it is warm and dry and it’s like taking a vacation every winter. This winter for this catholic family though is harder than ever because on the most important holiday of the year, Christmas, they must put up with a pigs head instead of a traditional ham or goose because that is all the butcher would give them for their docket. Also during this time,it is moreapparent that religion is being taught to Frankie now that he is growing up. On Christmas day his father takes him to church to see the Nativity Scene and tell him who everyone is. When they arrive home, the Frankie and Malachy are told to go fetch coal because there is not enough to even boil the water for the pig head. While they are out, their uncle finds them scavenging and takes them to the pub and he asks the bartender for some coal for the boys and he says yes with zero hesitation and says in all his years that was the first time somebody has ever asked for coal in his pub. The boys go home and take a nap while dinner is being cooked. When they wake up, Malachy is reluctant to eat the pig cheek, until his father smothers it in mustard and puts the head under the table so he wouldn’t know what he was eating and he told Malachy that it was ham. The family’s Christmas gift arrives nine months later with their new baby brother Michael. When Frankie asks where they got him, his father says he found Michael on the “seventh step.” After this, “Pa” gets another job, but it is short lived because after his first week’s pay, he immediately spends it at the pub. When he gets home, Angela makes him sleep downstairs in a chair. He ends up oversleeping and misses work and is fired the next day. We soon see Frankie getting ready for his first Communion, this is also where we get introduced to Mikey Malloy who supports his family because his dad is a championship pint drinker and his mother is in and out of the insane asylum. When Mikey tells Frankie about being paraded around after his first Communion and collecting money in his suit and buying lots of sweets and going to the movies, that’s all that’s on his mind until his first communion. Frankie’s education is harsh because his teacher would hit them with a stick if they ever got out of line. Although Frankie was one of the less privileged children in the class he is one of the smartest. The day before his first Confession, Mikey tells him a story about Cuchulain’s wife who won a contest to marry him by “pissing” the longest and Mikey tells him that he must confess that he said the word “piss” because it’s a curse word, but Mikey does not care because he never had his first Communion because he could never swallow the Host. Frankie soon became extremely nervous because he thinks that the priest wouldn’t forgive him for that but he soon prayed to the “Angel on the seventh step” and he told him to not worry, so he didn’t and confessed everything and he was soon relieved to find out that it wasn’t the worst sin confessed. After Communion, he is forced to go to his Grandma’s house for breakfast, even though he’d rather be out collecting money. After his massive feast of a breakfast Frankie throws it up and his grandmother is screaming at him because he threw up the body of Christ also, so she made him go back to confession and confess it and the priest once again forgave him and let him go, but when he walked out of the Confessional, his grandmother forced him back in to ask whether to clean up the vomit with normal water or holy water and the priest said normal water would do and to tell his grandmother to stop annoying him. After all of this, Frankie asks if he could go out and collect money to buy sweets and go to the movies, but his grandmother yells at him and says no but his mother defends him and takes him, but says that it’s now too late. On the way home, they see Mikey and he says he’ll sneak Frankie into the movies, so Frankie throws a fit at the ticket taker and Frankie slips into the theater and he watches movies with his fellow school mates.  This novel so far is extremely entertaining and makes you really appreciate your situation compared to the McCourts’ and all that they’ve been through. I think that if you are Irish and Catholic and have an abundant knowledge of the two, this story is a lot more meaningful because that’s what the story is all about. Frank McCourt also kept his story true to what happened and his thoughts as a child. It’s evident because of the thoughts that the character Frankie has are extremely realistic and I have experienced a few of them when I was younger and many kids have.
 * Feud between Catholics and Protestants
 * Feud between North and South Ireland
 * Catholic rituals and traditions
 * 1930’s Irish welfare
 * Food docket
 * Additional Info.

 Pages 151-208 

This section opens up with Frankie’s grandmother still outraged about him throwing up the Eucharist after his first communion and it is keeping some of the family from talking to each other like Angela and her mother. But soon Frank’s Grandmother starts talking to Angela again when Uncle pat, whose always been a little different because he was dropped on his head as a baby, brings back a protestant named Bill Galvin to live with them because he has no family and no place to live. So Frankie’s grandma tells his mother he should bring him his lunch everyday to the coal mines and reluctantly took the task but received sixpence every week, but one day when Frankie was bringing Galvin his lunch he was hungry and soon ate Galvin whole lunch and lied to Galvin saying that his grandma didn’t pack him a lunch so Bill forced him to go and get him lunch from his grandma but he was forced to confess that he ate Bill’s lunch and his she made him go to confession and didn’t get paid for two weeks. Soon there after Angela wants Frankie to start taking Irish dance lesson but he only went to one class because he didn’t want to be tormented by the other kids at school so he would take the s ixpence every day for lessons and go to the movies and buy lemonade and candy, but soon Mrs. O’Connor, the dance instructor, send a letter home saying that he hasn’t being to lessons in a long time and Frankie attempt to cover up not going to his lessons by making up and Irish jig or two every night was quickly foiled. Frankie is now going on ten and is in the fourth grade so it’s his time for confirmation. His head master is a small man named Mr. O’Neill who was always quick on the boys if they got out of line with the ash stick and smacked the boys over the hands. Mr. O’Neill also torments the boys when he asks impossibly hard questions to the boys with the reward of an apple but when they would get it wrong he’d keep pealing the skin of into the trash can but one day when Finton Slatery answers one of the questions, he goes to receive the apple, but O’Neill only gives him the skins, he had mislead the whole class the entire time, but Finton is an religious child and wants to give it to Frankie, Quigley, and Clohessy and Mr. O’Neill is stunned when he asks if he can, and he doesn’t respond simply takes the skins and gives it to the boys. It’s getting near the end of the fifth g rade and its time for his confirmation and every thing is well except the day before Frankie and Paddy ditch the second half of school and Frankie doesn’t want to return home after a message was sent home to tell his parents that he wasn’t at school so Paddy tells him that he can stays at his house. The next morning, Angela comes knocking on the door with a guard and brings Frankie home to get ready for confirmation. Everything goes off with out a hitch but after the ceremony, Frankie doesn’t feel well after and he gets dizzy and gets a bloody nose and doesn’t want to go home. Soom hes in bed for a few weeks and with no explinations helping they call the doctor and he rushes him tot the hospitol, he is diagnosed with Typhoid fever and receives his last rights. Soon he is being pumped with soldiers blood and is nicknamed their strong little soldier. One day a girl named Patricia yells through the well and begins to talk to Frankie, they and soon punished by Mother Rita. They speak every day often reciting poetry. So from now on the keep it to a whisper. Although one day they are caught again and Frankie is taken upstairs to a bigger ward so they cannot talk to each other. Many think is haunted and he has trouble sleeping every night,. Frankie is soon heartbroken though when he finds out Patricia has died from Diphtheria. After two months, he is finally released form the hospital, now eleven years old, he is bed ridden for awhile but in November has to go back to school but is forced to go back to the fifth grade which he doesn’t want to do because he doesn’t want to be in the same class as his brother Malachy, but after a few weeks he prays to his Patron Saint, St. Francis of Assisi, on his feast day that he wants to go to the sixth grade and soon there after Mr. O’Neill asked him to write an essay about what Jesus would be like if he grew up in Limerick and he is so astounded by his ideas and writing that he is immediately put into the sixth grade, that day after school he goes to the statue of St. Francis of Assisi to thank him, which is hard because he can barely walk after being bed ridden for so long. I love this book more and more every page I turn, I also and really connecting with this novel, especially in this section, because of religion. In this section Frankie is going through confirmation, which I am also going through very soon. I also appreciate McCourt not holding back any detail whether they be appropriate or not because it keeps the story very believable. You can almost feel young Frankie’s pain when he’s in the hospital for typhoid fever.


 * Typhoid fever
 * Diphtheria
 * 1930’s Irish grade school traditions
 * 1800’s and early 1900’s English literature
 * England’s Colonization of England
 * Additional Info.

 Pgs. 208-362  In this final section that I read, the story wrap up beautifully. In the beginning of this last section, it starts out with Frankie’s father drinking away the dole money but he no longer knows what to think because although he hate when he drinks the family’s dole, Frankie loves the morning when he is up early with his father, drinks tea, and reads the newspaper to him. Soon it is Christmas time and when Frank was previously in the hospital, they invited him back for Christmas dinner and that’s what he did and ate a feast of a meal. Once it got warm again in Limerick, the lavatory stunk to high heaven and brought more fleas and even rats the McCourt’s. but this is all taking place during the onset of WWII so many of the men in Ireland went to England to fight in the war and soon Angela sees all the money that her neighbors are getting from their husbands abroad so she forces Frankie’s father to go to England and he says he’ll work in a munitions factory and Angela even promises an egg a week to the boys once she starts to get money and she has dreams of buying new clothes, a house, and the boy’s long deserved boots but she is let done when she never receives money from Malachy. Soon Frank is sent back to the hospital after he gets conjunctivitis, an eye infection. For a short bit while he’s in the hospital, Seamus even read poetry to him but its shorted lived because he too must go to England to fight in the war. After Frankie is better and is allowed to go back home, Angela tells him that they haven’t been getting money from Malachy because he has been spending all his money in bars in England, soon Angela must stood down to the Meagher’s level and go to the dispensary for assistance because she is coming down with what she thinks is a cold. While she is lying in bed, Frank takes to a short life of thievery when Angela wants lemonade so he stole a loaf of bread and a few bottles of lemonade and keeps stealing food and fuel for the fire for a few days, but soon the school sends the guard to see why the Frankie has been absent, but he instead turns his attention to Angela and immediately gets the doctor and the doctor tells her she has pneumonia, she is rushed to the hospital. When news arrives to Malachy in England he rushes home to look after the boys but once Angela is home from the hospital he leaves again. With money still scarce, Angela is forced to the streets during the day and has to beg for money and when Frankie finds out she’s is he is embarrassed and ashamed. But Frank soon gets a job with Mr. Hannon, his neighbor, and makes good money and they become very close and he encourages mike to read and go to school but Frank’s eyes are starting to get bad from all of the coal dust and Angela will not let him work and when Mr. Hannon has to work by himself his legs go out and when he’s hospitalized, he tells Frank that he felt like he had a son in him and it mean a lot to Frank because he no longer knew what to think of his biological father drinking the pint in England. Malachy returns for Christmas though but leaves the day after. When Angelas is late on the rent for a month they decide to brun one of th media type="youtube" key="-Lz-yS_a-3k" height="390" width="480" align="right" e walls but when the landlord found out he evicted them, so they’re forced to live with Laman Griffin, Angela’s cousin. This is not the only hardship the family endures during this time, their grandmother dies of pneumonia, Malachy, Frankie’s Brother, decides he wants to go to an army music school in Dublin, and uncle Tom dies from drinking and his wife there soon after. One day when Frank forgets to empty Laman’s chamber pot, he is enraged and beats Frankie so he runs away and lives with Ab Sheehan, his uncle. Frankie soon gets a job at the post office as a telegram messenger but he doesn’t make as much as everybody else because he is a temporary worker. Once school starts again Michael to moves in with Ab and when Angela visits them frequently she ends up moving in. when he approaches the age of sixteen he is forced to take an exam to become a permanent employee so he gets payed double but he walks away from it and his boss is deeply offended so Frank gets a job at Eason Ltd. With Mr. McCaffrey. Angela soon too has a job, from Mr. Silney as his maid and she is very happy with the work. And when Malachy, Frank’s brother, gets fired from a Catholic school for acting to happy, he moves to England to shovel coal. Soon his whole family is dreaming along with Frank of moving back to America. Franks dream comes true though when he takes all his savings for the ticket and finally returns to America. This novel was probably my favorite book I’ve ever read because I could relate to many things in it. Although I had to leave many details out of these journals due to how vulgar they were, the story would have been amazing never the less. There is a sequel to it titled //Tis// and I plan on reading it over the summer when I have time. I would suggest this book to anybody and everybody.
 * Conjunctivitis
 * Job opportunities during WWII
 * WWII
 * Wages in 1940’s
 * Pneumonia
 * Additional Info.