A Crucial Point

During my presentation I read this pivotal quote:

"I look out at Mam at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette, drinking tea, and crying. I want to get up and tell her I'll be a man soon and I'll get a job in the place with the big gate and I'll come home every Friday night with money for eggs and toast and jam and she can sing Anyone can see why I wanted your kiss." (28)

This quote clearly demonstrates that, from the young and impressionable age of four, Frank understands that his father's behaviour is wrong and counterproductive to his family's wellbeing. He wants to be his mother's protector and puts a huge importance on "being a man." I saw this develop into a bit of an obsession throughout the book, and I wanted to share an important quote that proves this.

"At the end of the week Mrs. O'Connell hands me the first wages of my life, a pound, my first pound. I run down the stairs and up to O'Connell Street, the main street, where the lights are on and people are going home from work, people like me with wages in their pockets. I want them to know I'm like them, I'm a man, I have a pound. I walk up one side of O'Connell Street and down the other and hope they'll notice me. They don't. I want to wave my pound note at the world so they'll say, There he goes, Frankie McCourt the workingman, with a pound in his pocket." (314)

Diction in Angela's Ashes

An interesting way that McCourt displayed the cultural differences in the book is through the use of spelling. Frank uses different spelling to illustrate the different accents. For example, when Irish people are talking, McCourt spells his words in the form of an Irish accent. Some of these are "eejit" instead of idiot, "aisy" instead of easy, "o' " instead of of, "tay" intead of tea, and "mam" instead of mom. When Frank moves to America at the end of the book, the difference is evident because McCourt immitates the American accents. "Pawty" is used to display party. The spelling difference emphasizes the cultural difference as well, as Frank's father is often discriminated against for being from Northern Ireland, meaning his accent is strange. It is interesting that McCourt picked up on these differences and their importance so early on in his life. This definitely speaks to the time and culture in which he grew up.

An Interesting Point of View

Throughout my reading of Angela's Ashes, something that really stood out to me was the unique point of view from which the book is written. Frank is a young child dealing with extremely harsh and adult themes, such as poverty, addiction, death, illness and discrimination. While these issues are undoubtedly serious and heavy, it is different hearing a child's thoughts on them. Frank is so naive and honest that his thoughts on the matter often add a refreshing element of innocence. The issues discussed can be depressing at times, but McCourt overcomes this. At certain times these very serious issues are overshadowed by the fact that Frank is a child. For example, when Frank, his mother and brothers are evicted from their home and have to move in with Angela's cousin, Frank is just happy that him and his brothers might not have to go to school the next day. Through careful consideration of the issues Frank faced mixed in with the occasional comedic relief, McCourt displays his story in an effective and enjoyable way.

Shakespeare's Contribution to the English Language

While reading "Shakespeare, the world as stage" by Bill Bryson, I came across certain facts or passages that stuck out at me. One such passage was towards the end of the book when Bryson discusses how there are over six hundred words in Shakespeare's plays that were never in existence beforehand. These are words that are integral parts of our vocabulary even still, which is baffling to consider. Some of these words include critical, frugal, extract, dwindle, horrid, vast, excellent, eventful, zany, lonely, and assassination.

Another fact that presented itself during my reading was that Shakespeare redefined english vocabulary when he added un- prefixes to existing words in order to make new ones. These were unprecedented words that no one had thought of before. Some of these words are unmask, unhand, unlock, untie, unveil, and over three hundred other similar creations.

This really stood out to me when I considered I would express myself without Shakespeare's invaluable contributions to the English language.

An interesting take on Shakespeare's style

Bryson made many interesting points during the course of the novel. He discussed many legal documents that Shakespeare could be traced to, which proved different things such as where he was in a certain year or how wealthy he was at certain points in his career and so on. While these were all very interesting and valid, my favourite part of the book was when Bryson got down to the real details that make Shakespeare the literary legend he is today; his writing style. The ways in which his style differed from others of that time period is truly fascinating, and certainly explains why he is so highly esteemed even after centuries have passed. Some of the most fascinating examples are as follows.

Stages during this time period had little to no scenery or curtains, meaning there was no way to distinguish night from day, fog from sunshine, or even room to room. Needless to say this caused plenty of confusion during most plays. Shakespeare, however, had an excellent way of making up for this. He set scenes using words. For example, in the opening lines of Hamlet, Francisco asks Barnardo to unfold himself. While this might not be overly siginificant to us today, "unfold yourself" meant to take off your cloak. Therefore, from just a few lines, Shakespeare was able to establish that it was nighttime, as well as cold out.

In addition to this ingenius way of expressing himself, Shakespeare's plays varied immensely in terms of length and style. The number of scenes varied from each play from seven to forty seven, lines varied from 1800 to over 4000. (2700 was the average during the time).

Independent read interesting idea

My book for the independent read is "Shakespeare" by Bill Bryson. It's all about William Shakespeare, what we know about him, what we don't know, and what we want to know. As I read through the first few chapters, one idea jumped out at me. Bryson pointed out that although it is commonly believed that we hardly know anything about Shakespeare's life, we actually know more about him than other historical figures from this time period due to the sheer number of his works we were able to get ahold of. It was here that Bryson made the interesting point that the reason we feel we know nothing about Shakespeare is because we want to know more about him, not because we actually don't know anything about him. It was also interesting to learn that in terms of the time period, and compared to others who lived during that time, we have actually been able to learn a lot about Shakespeare.

Assignment #2

The part of this chapter that struck me the most was the overall message of it- that most if not all of literature has basis from a piece already created. This drew my attention because I had never thought of it that way before. Everyone talks about movies and songs being repetitive (which are in essence stories themselves) but I had never thought of this in terms of great classics like Huckleberry Finn or the other works mentioned in the chapter. I liked how Frye reassures readers that he does not mean that nothing is new in literature. The conclusion that can be drawn from this is that even though similar aspects exist from story to story, that is not to say that one is better or more original than the other because all these stories are doing is taking from what it means to be human and using those main themes again in their stories. They can be applied in different ways and different conclusions can be drawn from each story, which is possibly the best part of literature. These works are all written by humans about BEING human, what its like to live and love and be betrayed, etc. The best part of it all is that with every story comes a new perspective in what it means to be human, giving us readers much to go through, think about and ultimately decide our opinions on a plethora of topics.

Science and Literature

”Is it possible that literature, especially poetry, is something that a scientific civilization like ours will eventually outgrow?” (p.11)

I think Frye means exactly what he says here, but it is rhetorical and he doesnt think that we will outgrow it. I tend to agree with him because in class today we discussed that without literature we would be missing something, just like without science our world would be completely different. I think that even though our society has moved away from more formal writing and poetry etc, when we read poetry we can relate to it still affects us in some way. This can relate to "The love of learning" because both men have a passion for english, both are speaking to students (this is how Frye said he was going to convey his message) and they both put a huge emphasis on literature and reading and the meaning behind it all.