Angelas Ashes Handout

Question of Literary genre: memoir not an autobiography emphasises personal Guilt/redemption and religion views over factuality. Guilt and absolution through confession How much of it happened the way it is told in the book given some of the events Role of the catholic church in irish society? Imposes a crippling guilt upon Frankie and the happened when Frankie was very young. irish people by condemning the necessities of survival.

Is what actually important? the point; whatlessons)( Frankie remembers Frankie steals; Apples fromhappened farmer, Money from Is mother. (for that dancing mother constitutes his personal history, his origins. trying to live through her children) Frankie feels guilt for Liaison with dying girl, Masturbating References: IGEARTAIGH, Mitchell The church does little beyond Individuality/personhood/personality condemn it cannot deal with the moral ambiguities of real life and thus fails Frankiethe St Vincent de Paul society is portrayed as ineffectual and North Ireland vs south Ireland unhelpful it fails Frankies family in a material sense just as the church fails them in a spiritual sense. The lanes Frankie seeks redemption through the priest via confession, feels unburdened guilt absolved Identity clothes and shoes especially in regards to interactions in school. but he is only truly redeemed when he throws the debt book into the water. Churches redemption was illusory; savesthrough himselfcontinuous by throwing the debtpresent into thetense water and Coming of ageFrankie constructed historical draws making a new lifeinto for himself bytimeless going tostate America. Takes responsibility. reader an almost of waiting for coming of age with Frankie.
1. How closely does McCourts ideas of personal-history and identity parallel other modern intellectual

References: Forbes, levy, Hagan

Discussion Questions

movements especially existentialism?

Escapism: and 2. What does the critical and popular success physical of this novel assymbolic a history-as-memory text reveal about
our References culture? Recurring theme of alcohol abuse as a flaw of Irish society. Drunkenness tied up
Brameld,3. T. (1972). Education as self-fulfilling prophecy. Phi Delta Kappa International , 54(1), 8-11. from with masculine identity and pride of Malachy (father) Is Frankies story also the story of Ireland? In what sense? (Reflective, callRetrieved to change) http://www.jstor.org/stable/20373369

A. Italy vs Ireland. The symbolic retreat from the depressing reality of the IGEARTAIGH, N. (2004/2005). Angela's Ashes: An American memoir of an Irish childhood. Irish Association for American Studies, 13(14), 81-92. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40658377 McCourts situation.
Levy, E. P. (2002). The predicament of individuality in "Angela's Ashes". Irish University Review, 32(2), 259-272. Retrieved from Employment opportunity during WWII allows for fathers escape to England. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25504908

Frankies escape also comes through employment, firstly though his coal hauling Robinson, F. M. (2000). "the one way out": Limerick and "Angela's Ashes". University of St. Thomas (Center for Irish Studies) , 4(2), 9-25. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20557649 job then messenger job. Both positive and negative forms of escaping the
Hagan, E. A. (2000). Really an alley cat? "Angela's and critical orthodoxy. University of St. Thomaswhilst (Center for Irish Studies), situation through work,Ashes" however Frankies escape is authentic Malachys 4(4), 39-52. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20646341 Potts, D. (1999). Sacralizing the secular in Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes". Irish Province of the Society of Jesus, 88(351), 284294. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/30096077

is not. Malachy works to facilitate his primary form of escape: alcohol.

The American ideal is romanticised by Frankie. Becomes his primary goal, to escape Limerick and move to America. Limerick is the symbol of all that is Mitchell, J. B. (2003). Popular autobiography as histiography: The reality effect of frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes. Biography: An wrong in Frankies Interdisciplinary Quarterly , 26 (4), 607-624. life and in Ireland in general. The escape to America is a physical identity and spiritual Forbes, S. (2007). Performative formation escape. in frank mccourt's Angela's Ashes: A memoir. Journal of Narrative Theory, 473
496.

Reference: Robinson