"It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." (McCourt, 1.)
Through my eyes, this quotation represented a negative, cold feeling through the authors choice of words. I was instantly able to predict the "main conflict," in a way, of the novel.
- Other Ideas To Think About:
- Predictions involving the relationship between Frank and her Father?
- Imagine yourself in Angela's role; child's death(leading to depression), alcoholic husband, low budget due to Malachy.
- Scene involving Frank watching as his mother vomits over the side of the ship as the Statue of Liberty continues to cease in distance; ILLUSTRATION!
Jenna S.
I agree with your interpretation of the quote on page one. It really gives you the main concept of the book straight up and the author doesn't hold back anything back. It's saying that being an Irish Catholic child was a pretty tough, miserable time, but it was "worth the while" because there were challenges and everything wasn't so happy and bubbly. For example, within the next paragraph, McCourt goes on to explain why an Irish childhood was so miserable.
ReplyDelete"People everywhere brag and whimper aboue the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years."