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Examples Of Ethos In Angela's Ashes

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Humor and Pathos in the creation of Stereotypes Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt is a Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir. The memoir begins in America during The Great Depression. Following the passing of baby Margaret, the family decides to return to Ireland. The memoir follows Franks, his mother Angela, his father Malachy Sr., and his sibling's experiences living in the slums of Limerick. McCourt uses humor and pathos to present the stereotypes of the drunken, dreaming father, the sad but strong-willed Irish mother, and the wayward, ignorant child through the characterizations of Malachy Sr., Angela, and young Frank McCourt. To begin, McCourt accurately portrays the stereotype of the drunken, dreaming father through his characterization of Malachy Sr. by using pathos to create an emotional connection with the …show more content…

McCourt highlights the prejudices Malachy faces when he searches for a job. After acquiring work he is buoyant by all the newfound money he is gaining he decides to treat himself to a pint. By the end of the night, Malachy wastes all of his family's money and is fired from his job the next day because he shows up late to work drunk. These events continue, causing a financially and emotionally harmful cycle. Pathos is used when Frank expresses, “He turns toward Mam and she says, You’re not sleeping in this bed tonight. He makes his way downstairs with the candle, sleeps on a chair, misses work in the morning, loses the job at the cement factory, and we’re back on the dole again” (112). Through McCourt's portrayal of Malachy Sr., McCourt highlights the broken promises and heartbreak his father causes the family by depicting Malachy’s personality when sober as caring, loving, and humorous. But when Malachy “does the bad thing” (210), he becomes this crazy drunk lunatic

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The main character is introduced while on his way to an airport where he will take a flight to go visit his father for the summer. The first insight into Brian’s personality is his abhorrent thoughts toward his mother: “Divorce. It was an ugly word, he thought. A tearing, ugly word that meant fights and yelling, lawyers…” (Paulsen 3).

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Jaynie Duran Mrs. Esparza AP Language Period 5 10 March 2023 Rhetorical Devices in Angela’s Ashes The author, Frank Mcourt uses rhetorical devices such as symbols, repetition, point-of-view, and themes to help illustrate the book's purpose, which is to highlight significant life events that he experienced when he was younger that helped him develop to the man he became later on in life. A memoir called “Angela's Ashes” discusses Frank’s early experiences with poverty during the Great Depression, his parents' drug and alcoholism addiction, Catholic beliefs system, and lower class struggles that he had to face when he was younger. In the title “Angela's Ashes'' the word ashes symbolizes lack of hope and life destruction.

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The McCourt face many economic problems throughout the story. One of them is when Angela presents the butcher a ticket that gave her a free meal for Christmas and instead of having steak or duck like other families, they get a pig 's head. The kid 's then had to go pick the streets for Coal, because they did not have any at home to cook the head. Even though the family had so many economic problems Frank 's mother always told Frank to make something of himself, that he could do it. Frank wanted to move back to the United States, so he started working as a paper boy.

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In the book Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, the character Angela McCourt is one of the most dependable and loyal mothers in all of literature. Even though Angela goes through many spells of depression throughout the memoir, her dedication to her family and her perseverance through adversity is what makes her a great mother and an extraordinary person. Throughout the memoir Angela faces many challenges, which include her husband, who spends all of their very little money on alcohol and eventually abandons the family. This left Angela as the sole provider. Additionally, the death of her daughter Margaret and her twin sons Oliver and Eugene drove Angela into a state of depression.

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Frank McCourt’s memoir, Angela’s Ashes, demonstrates how the abuse of alcohol can yield destructive results but through the endurance and love of family, the obstacles that alcohol abuse imposes may be conquered. Throughout the memoir, it is clear that McCourt’s life is not an easy one; he deals with many hardships from poverty to hunger to living in unsanitary conditions mostly due to the fact that his father is an alcoholic and abandons the family (Caduceus). In the beginning of the memoir, McCourt begins telling his story by describing how troubled and difficult his childhood was. He is letting the audience know that he did not live a happy childhood like most normal kids; he lived a rough childhood in Ireland (Shannon).

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Extroverts can be some of the best people you meet. They have plenty to offer and thrive at the attention of others. However, being introverted can be just as great. In a society where being extroverted is the ideal, it can be very difficult to be an introvert. Susan Cain argues in her Ted Talk, “The Power of Introverts”, that introverts can share many brilliant ideas with the world and should be encouraged and celebrated for who they are.

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Frank McCourt is held back by an alcoholic father and a depressed, helpless mother. When he is old enough, Frank is finally able to acknowledge his parents problems: “I know when Dad does the bad thing. I know when he drinks the dole money and Mam is desperate and has to beg at the St.Vincent de Paul Society” (McCourt 208). On the rare occasions when money is present in the McCourt household, Malachy thinks of himself before his family and is not responsible in regards to putting the money to good use. As opposed to buying food, upgrading their house, or saving the money for later, it goes to waste at the bar and gives Angela no other option but to resort to asking charity organizations for assistance.

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In the short story Reunion, grotesque elements of humor are used to examine the sensitive subjects of father son relationships and alcoholism. By using this technique to delve into subjects which are questionable in nature, the author is able to communicate his opinion on the topics. Through portraying Charlie’s father as a stereotypical alcoholic, the author allows the plot to develop into a reality of the paradigm for unfortunate father son relationships and the devastating affects alcoholism has on the people around them. The author uses Charlie’s relationship with his father to emphasize the issue of father son relationships.

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First, McCourt uses humor and wit as his main style for his memoir. McCourt shows his humor and wit through his incorporation on word choice and imbedded quotes, poems, and song. Second, McCourt’s

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Flannery O’Connor uses her short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” to show the transformation of two character stereotypes which the grandmother and Misfit embody. This story might seem like a road trip gone wrong but, O’Connor also shows that through compassion and grace, people can change. The grandmother’s stereotype is a southern, Christian, overpowering mother who is often judgemental and hypocritical. She is flawed from the start and is ultimately responsible for the family’s fate, insisting on the change of course.

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The grandmother’s moment of grace begins when she sees the Misfit breaking down like a child would. Previously, O’Connor showed that the Misfit “didn’t have on any shirt” and “his ankles were red and thin” through the grandmother’s eyes (72 and 74). The grandmother saw the Misfit as vulnerable, and now, the Misfit seems “as if he were going to cry” (136). The Misfit has an emotional breakdown, and “his voice seemed about to crack and the grandmother’s head cleared for an instant” (136). O’Connor depicts the Misfit as vulnerable and connects him with the grandmother’s son, Bailey, by clothing him in Bailey’s “yellow shirt with bright blue parrots” in order to make the Misfit seem like the grandmother’s own helpless child, opening her heart and eliciting compassion from the grandmother for the Misfit (122).

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1466 Words | 6 Pages

O’Connor’s use of satire and how morbid the characters give the reader to not sympathize with them because of their pettiness, ludicrous, and so irredeemably gauche character. “O’Connor creates hearty guffaws and cries of horror, then

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1051 Words | 5 Pages

It is evident that the narrator has aged by the way he now focuses on the story instead of going off into tangents that describe minor details. Overall, the word choice, sentence structure, and information presented by Frank McCourt in Angela’s Ashes match the age of McCourt’s character to the narrator. By doing so, the memoir takes the reader through Frank McCourt’s mind as he is growing up, but the style of the author recounts the disheartening details of his miserable childhood in a more amusing way to create an enjoyable and humorous

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1393 Words | 6 Pages

Moreover, when the Misfit and the two men shoot the whole family in the woods, it illustrates the sinister and cruel world that needs saving. The violent car crash that causes the family to encounter the Misfit in the first place adds to the violent display that O’Connor creates of the world. O’Connor uses the violence in the story to shock the readers into self-awareness (Larson 1). She uses this self-awareness to bring to light the religious theme of redemption and grace for the corrupted. O’Connor’s

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From the beginning of Counterparts, there is a clear indication that Farrington a father of five children, has issues with work colleagues which causes him to drink excessively and become aggressive. Failure is a theme that elaborates with dysfunctional families. Many factors caused Farrington ‘the man’ to turn to alcohol which then turned into violence. Straight away this represents Farrington as an angry drunk, and also an abusive drunk. The theme dysfunctional family plays a large role in this short story.

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