The Story of Angelas Ashes by Frank McCourt - Essay Example

 The story of Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt “Angela’s Ashes” is a classic story written by Frank McCourt who also happens to be the protagonist in the story. This touching story was written by Frank after he retired from teaching in a number of New York City high schools, and was published in 1996 by Scribner. The story is based on real life incidents experienced by Frank in Ireland before he could migrate to America. Frank McCourt had been born of Irish immigrant parents, Angela and Malachy McCourt in Brooklyn in 1931. He was the first of seven children and since his father was an alcoholic, the family lived in utter poverty. It was during the period of Depression, the McCourt’s had lost three children. When Frank was about thirteen years old, their father abandoned them and left to England. McCourt though a brilliant student was forced to leave school when he was just 14 years and work at the Limerick Post Office in order to fend for his family. However, Frank had the desire to fulfill his dreams and decided to leave his job at the Post Office and migrate to America. This decision had a great impact on Frank’s life and turned it around in his favor. So, after saving enough money, he left Ireland at the age of nineteen and came to New York City. For Frank, it was a whole new world altogether, considering the poverty- stricken background he came from. He admires the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and the Empire State Building and says - "the sun turns everything to gold" (359) Frank worked hard at many different jobs but when the Korean War broke out, he was drafted into the army of the United States. By making use of the G.I Bill at New York University, he earned his College degree and after his graduation, he taught at the New York City Public School and became quite a successful teacher. Later, he taught at the highly competitive Stuyvesant High School, for the next thirty years of his life. It was only after his retirement that Frank reinvented his writing skills once again and wrote “Angela’s Ashes” (1996) which made him quite famous by selling over 5 million copies after being translated into seventeen languages across 27 countries. He won several awards which included the Los Angeles Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1997 for Biography. ‘Waiting for Snow in Havana’ is Carlos Eire’s most riveting memoir, that sheds light on the ‘Operation Pedro Pan’ when Carlos Eire and his elder brother Tony aged 11 and 14 are airlifted from Cuba to the U.S. It seemed like a dream to them as they enjoyed the panoramic view while they flew over the large ocean. They never imagined that they would not be seeing their mother in the next three years nor would they ever see their father again. This story is quite the opposite of what happened in the case of McCourt. In this moving tale, Carlos sheds light on the privileged life he led in pre- Castro Havana. Carlos had led an exceedingly charmed life as though in Paradise, surfing, watching American movies, enjoying birthday parties at luxurious places, swimming at special clubs and bursting firecrackers. In McCourt’s biography we find that Frank had a very poor childhood where starvation was rampant in addition to an alcoholic father who never bothered to provide his family with food and security. On the other hand, Carlos’ father was a prominent and wealthy Cuban judge who provided his family with a good life. However, his father believed himself to be the reincarnation of King Louis XIV and his wife to be Marie Antoinette. After the fall of the Batista Government, Carlos found his childhood been disintegrated by loss and change because Fidel Castro had ousted President Batista on January 1, 1959 and decided to separate children from their families. By intuition, Eire’s mother insisted on getting the boys out of the country because she feared for their safety. However, their father did not agree to follow the boys to their next destination. Carlos leads a miserable existence in South Florida and Chicago, paving his way through school while working at a hotel restaurant. However, his hard work pays off and he became a professor of religion at Yale University. In doing so, he also fulfills his mother’s dream by becoming a modern American Man, but his heart belonged to his own country Cuba. His loss of Cuba is irrevocable and this is clearly evident when he expresses "in the past 38 years I’ve seen 8,917 clouds in the shape of the island Cuba," (Carlos) ‘Waiting for Snow in Havana’ is considered to be one of the best books of 2003 and is winner of the 2003 National Book Award. “Geese” is the heartrending story of a young Black woman Dina, who is desperate to upgrade her life from a ghetto in Baltimore and so tries to seek her fortunes in Japan. However, this fairytale was to be quite short lived, because she finds herself sharing a tiny apartment with a set of bitter and unemployed foreigners. The author of “Geese” is ZZ Packer whose masterful stories are intensely realistic and filled with a deep humanity as she projects her African-American characters who yearn and search for belonging but never find it. The African - American experience of bigger and better dreams is so well brought out in ZZ Packer’s short stories titled, ‘Drinking Coffee Elsewhere”. It Chronicles these aspiring dreams and contrasts them against the disillusioned backdrop of the protagonists. Dina, is one such who dreams big. She is fed –up with her sad and poor existence in a ghetto of Baltimore and hence travels to Tokyo to try and make tons of money and enjoy a lavish and luxurious life. The reason she gives her family for leaving home is that “she was going to Japan in the hopes of making a pile of money, . . . . Back home, money was the only excuse for leaving …” (p. 210) Life deals her a hard blow when she finds herself destitute and in the company of people who are as destitute as she is. As the title “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” suggests, Dina, the protagonist in the story uses a strategy of endurance in order to make her miserable life less painful. The strategy involved pretending to be somewhere else if a particular situation becomes unbearable. Just as in the story of “Angela’s Ashes” by Frank McCourt, Dina too chases her dreams but she is left totally disillusioned at the end of it. The thematic ploy in ‘Geese’ is Asian prejudice against Blacks. Dina’s dreams of making piles of money is short lived when she finds she is on the brink of starvation and hence succumbs herself to prostitution to a Japanese sarariman, who liked Black girls for their charm and dark skin. For Dina it was not so much for the money that she left her family to come to a foreign country like Japan, but it was more for escaping from her tumultuous life and meager living that she was ready to leave the comfort zone of her family and embark to a new land like Japan. Her country Baltimore did not offer high yielding opportunities and this is the reason she gave her family when she left. However, the real reason she left was because she longed for the “loveliness” that Japan will offer through its ceremonious bowing, sashimi delicacies and architecture. (ZZ Packer, pg. 211) It is quite evident that for Dina it was more of an escape from her former environment where she was taught, “Never to advertise your poverty. Dress immaculately. Always smell good, not just clean.” (224) When compared to the other above stories, Dina is found not realizing her dream of leading a good life. It clearly shows that even though all three protagonists were drifters in their own ways, yet each one’s survival plan was different. Good judgment, wit, hard work, patience and determination are all very crucial to survival. Poor preparation and execution of one’s plans can lead to self –annihilation and regret. This is what happened in the case of poor Dina, who could not pick up the art of survival in a foreign country. While Carlos and Frank were successful in their endeavor to succeed at all costs, Dina was not successful and fell deeper into the pits of misery. References Angela’s Ashes Characters www.gradesaver.com/angelas-ashes/study-guide/character-list/ Waiting for Snow in Havana www.news.bookweb.org/news/waiting-snow-havana-riveting-memoir The Short Review www.theshortreview.com/.../ZZPackerDrinkingCoffeeElsewhere.htm Read More