Friday, April 29, 2011

Very Rough Draft

Angela’s Ashes
I believe that the author's purpose in writing this book, Angela's Ashes, by Frank McCourt is trying to get the story about his family out. It probably was nice to get the stories off his chest and be able to show the world about his family. It also probably made him more comfortable with his life because in writing the stories he is able to have a hard copy of his family's history so it wont get lost in time-like what happened with my family. I believe this because the entire book is essentially about his family and how they were in the United States and Ireland. I think that his purpose for writing the book because it contains his family history and it gives an emotional appeal that only he could have given.
I did some research on what the author thinks about his book and I found, "As a "memoirist," I've had three different ranges of experience: Angela's Ashes; 'Tis; Teacher Man. Most of the people in Ashes were dead (still are). I didn't have to worry too much about consulting anyone, though I once—only once—mentioned what I was writing to my brother, Malachy. When the book was published in Ireland, I was denounced from hill, pulpit, and barstool. Certain citizens claimed I had disgraced the fair name of the city of Limerick, that I had attacked the church, that I had despoiled my mother's name, and that if I returned to Limerick, I would surely be found hanging from a lamppost." It seems as though he wasn't too confident his audience liked the book. I believe that the audience is Irish people as a whole-mainly because of how easily I was able to relate to the book and I am Irish-but I guess that his family wasn't the audience intended.Reading this story actually makes me more interested in finding my roots. Having another family with a relatively close history to my own makes it actually have meaning. As silly as it sounds having another family show me that there is history that could be found makes me extremely curious to find my own history. With all the new technology it should be a lot easier than it was when I tired to find my family before. I'm going to go do that right now.
I think that the books major weakness is how it gets slightly boring in the middle. The surprising thing is that I have talked about this book to other people and I seem to be the only on uninterested in the section I found boring. So, it could just be me. I'm not sure. Other than that section-the first half od the middle section-I really like this book. I continue to find similarities between the book and my childhood and family history. The part I found the closest to my own history is in the very beginning where Frank McCourt gives a very brief history of his family coming from Ireland during the early 1920's-which I believe is when my family came but as said in previous blog posts no one really knows. I believe that we came around the same time because even though there are no solid dates in my family history the stories seem to go hand in hand.

4 comments:

  1. You seem to have no transition between your paragraphs. You did s really hood job of answering the question. You did a good job by telling ous how the purpose of writing the book was to show of his life and to inform ous about his lifestyle. I also thought you did Good job on telling ous the weakness of the boom. Overall I think that you wrote a good essay.

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  2. You kind of jump from one topic to another. You don't do it much, but it is noticeable. Like, Vanessa said, you seem to not have transitions between your ideas, and then when you jump into another thing it juts leaves the reader kind of confused. Could you connect this book to anything else? or is the only connection you see between the book and something else is your life?

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  3. Like Vanessa and Marco said, you jump from one topic to another; transitions is needed. Also, the format needs to be corrected. For example, the quote need to have page numbers and there should be several paragraphs, not one big one. Overall, your essay seemed fine and your heading towards the right way by talking about the author's life and relating it to your life.

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  4. I like how you wrote about the book's weakness. Good connection to self, but maybe you could shed some light on some examples from the book so the readers can learn something from the book through you.

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