Angela's Ashes Summary

5. What two things disappoint Frank after his recovery from typhoid fever? How does Frank overcome each?

“When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all…the poverty; the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father [and] the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire” (McCourt 1). This is how Frank McCourt introduces his memoir, Angela’s Ashes. He tells the story of his growing up in a poverty stricken world, brought on to them by the alcoholism of his father. Being the recollections of a person’s memoires it is sometimes difficult to believe in all the poverty, abuse and family which Franck claims existed and were caused by alcoholism. Alcoholism is the root of all problems in the book as it leads to poverty, abuse and family tensions. By comparing Frank’s testimony of how alcohol ruined his childhood to other real world scenarios it will be possible to determine if Frank’s case is the norm for alcohol taking this kind of effect or is his story just an extreme case of alcohol abuse.

“Whatever it was, it was dying by the time I was born,and before I turned six”(Pfeffer, 2). The short story Ashes was written by Susan Beth Pfeffer. The story is about Ashes and her relationship with her dad and her mom. Ashes is in a problem when her dad asks her to “borrow” money from her mom. Ashes is left with two options, either help her dad or her mom. Ashleigh did take the money because she loves her dad, trusts her dad, and she is like her dad.

Ireland had recently gained independence from England and the whole country was extremely impoverished due to the lack of independent industry and the dependence on Brittan. This also caused unemployment to be rampant and for many men to constantly lose their jobs. The frustration of these men led to widespread drinking as an attempt to drown their sorrows. In Frank’s case, his father’s drinking also led to the starvation and poverty of his family. The best thing for the family was when Malachy finally abandoned them when Frank was eleven. His mother, a loyal Irish Catholic, could never divorce Malachy due to the Church’s strict laws against it and their belief that a woman should stand by a man regardless of his actions. These attributes of poverty, starvation, and religion are strong themes throughout the novel. Frank McCourt uses them to explain and show the hard age of the Irish in that time, “When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was of course, a miserable childhood. . . . Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood,” (Frank McCourt). McCourt’s family had to rely on the church for donations and their father to hold a job and keep them out of poverty but both had failed them, turning the McCourt’s down in their own fashion. The church, slamming their door in Frank’s face because

There’s a certain level of fear that the film emits since anyone could have been Angela. Anyone who has information out in the Internet can quickly lose it, even if they hold some expertise over it. The film cultivates this fear by depicting a series of violent scenes that Angela had to survive to resolve her problem.

The short story, “Ashes,” by Susan Beth Pfeffer is about a girl, Ashes, who has divorced parents. She is torn between her parents when she is given the opportunity to help her dad, but the twist is she has to steal from her mom to do this. A lesson that is learned from “Ashes” is that someone who normally teaches you to do good may also teach you to do something bad.

Firstly, Frank’s mother was disheartened by the delay of the paychecks arrival from her husband in England. Angela’s attitude towards hope becomes hopeless; then she decided to smoke. Frank then observes and states, “Mam turns toward the dead ashes in the fire and sucks at the last bit of goodness in the woodbine butt caught between the brown thumb and the burnt middle finger. Michael who is only five and won’t understand anything till he’s eleven like me wants to know if we’re having fish and chips tonight because he’s hungry. Mam says, Next week, love, and he goes back out to play in the lane” (224). The fact that everyone in the lane gets money orders from England, McCourt’s family never gets anything. Which is the reason why that led Angela become obsessed with smoking because her dream of living a luxury life have been completely destroyed and collapsed, smoking cigarettes seems to be the only way to comfort her mind. On the

     The title of this book is Angela’s Ashes. The title doesn’t make a lot of sense because the story about Angela’s cremation and her lost ashes is found in part two of the book. However, ashes do appear in the book in relation to Angela. An example of this would be the ashes from Angela’s Woodbine cigarettes. And another example would be Angela sitting next to the ashes from the fireplace during hard times.

In the short story called, “Ashes” by Susan Beth Pfeffer, the protagonist is dealing with the complicated relationship between her divorced parents. Ashleigh, the main character, is questioned by her dad if she can borrow her mom's money for his own problems. Ashes, short for Ashleigh, like the compliments that she keeps receiving from her dad. Ashes complex relationship with her parents makes her choose between her mom or her dad. One lesson this story suggests is that no matter how much you love someone, you have to let them handle things on their own.

Angela’s Ashes takes place in Ireland during the 1930s, a period of time when the economy in Limerick was declining. The Street takes place in Harlem, New York City during World War II. The settings in both novels take place in the bitter cold during hard times. The settings play a huge role in the theme because it shows how the characters live. Frank McCourt and Lutie Johnson are two characters who deal with poverty throughout their lives. Frank McCourt, the author and main character of Angela’s Ashes, writes about the struggles with poverty he had as a child. Through this time he has to make hard decisions in order to survive. Ann Petry portrays poverty in her writing by using the cold to show the despair of the people walking along the streets of New York. The authors’ way of showing poverty in their novels differs in some ways but is very similar to one another. The author of Angela’s Ashes and the author of The Street convey the theme of poverty through their similar settings and the characters’ need for survival.

In the novel Angela's Ashes, (1996) by Frank McCourt, a life of poverty is the only life this family knows. It is a memoir about a young boy born in New York City. Frank, born ten months prior to his brother Malachy, was raised in a small apartment with his parents, Angela and Malachy McCourt.

50% of children experience the divorce of their parents according to www.marriage-success-secrets.com. In Ashes, by Susan Beth Pfeffer, Ashleigh’s parents have been divorced for the last two years. She loves both of them but has a special soft spot for her dad. Ashleigh’s mom is a practical person and her dad is described as a dreamer. After a dinner with her father, Ashleigh receives a request. He wants her to to take her mom’s emergency money to pay off a deal he made. Ashleigh makes the decision to not give her dad the money because she questions the process and outcome, her father has a history of making irresponsible decisions, and the clouds symbolize her feelings towards her dad’s plan.

This is similar to how the McCourts from, “Angela’s Ashes,” had a rough time being able to provide for their family. Another similarity that I noticed was the relationship between the two Wes Moores and Frank and Malachy. One Wes Moore ended up very successful and how the other Wes Moore was the complete opposite and ended up life sentence in prison. This is similar to how Frank is able to make the right decisions and provides for his family while his father Malachy is the opposite who waste money on drinking an and leaves his family behind. Additionally, the theme of education is present in both books. In, “The Other Wes Moore,” we see that education is the only thing that can help you make the right decision and stay out of prison like the other Wes Moore. In, “Angela’s Ashes,” we see Frank’s interest in knowledge and how throughout the novel he is reading, writing, and

The case study of Angela and Adam describes a situation in which a Caucasian teenage mother, Angela, does not appear to have a bond with her 11 month old son, Adam. According to Broderick and Blewitt (2015) Angela and Adam live in the home with Angela’s mother, Sarah. Angela’s relationship with her own mother is described as a bit dysfunctional as Sarah is reported to continue to be angry with Angela for becoming pregnant in the first place. Sarah’s anger has caused her to deny Adam’s father the ability to come to the home and play an active role in Adam’s life, therefore putting more of a strain on Angela, who has already had to drop out of high school in an attempt to take care of Adam on her own. Angela has openly admitted to aggressive behavior towards Adam such as grabbing his face and handling Adam in a rough manner. In return, Adam has reacted by being avoidant of his mother and he is reported to not respond to his mother as an 11 month old child should and he is not reported to have an appropriate bond with his mother.

Typhoid Fever and The Education of Frank McCourt share many similarities as well as differences. A difference includes that Typhoid Fever tells us the story from Frank’s ten-year-old perspective, while The Education of Frank McCourt is told from his adult perspective. Typhoid Fever takes place in around the ’30s or ‘40s and displays how illnesses spread throughout Ireland. In the article, Frank discusses how went through these struggles, and how he faced them strongly. A similarity between Both texts is that they describe the importance and necessity of literature. In Typhoid Fever, Frankie and Patricia share a bond between the poem “The Highwayman”. In the