Comment on all these questions. Remember to give reasons based on the book!! In your answers pay particular attention to the Chapters and pages suggested in each question.
1.How does the author feel about living in the USA? Does he miss Ireland? Does he view the USA as a land of opportunities? Why /not? (Chapter 4. Stories. pgs. 10, 11, 12 and Chapter 15. A Failed Everything pg. 51)
2. Why does F. Mc Court say:"There were no teenagers in Ireland, not in my world. (...) In a few years you went to England to work as a builder or to join the army." (pgs. 4 & 5). Explain your answer.
3. Coment the incident with Hector, the Cuban boy. (pgs. 37 & 38)
14 comments:
1.- When he arrived to USA life was very difficult for him. He had a misserable chilhood in Irland. He had had to work nights, to help pay for his courses, he had to work in low-paid jobs.
Another problem was that he was Irish, he was an special accent, I thik he was a lower person for american´s people.
- I think he don´t miss Irland because his life was very hard there . His miserable childhood was very negative for him, it marked his life.
- He views USA as a land opportunities. He could work and one day he become a teacher, an special teacher because he learned different methos of teachig , and he has students from different countries whith problems as him.
2.- He say there were no teenagers in Irland because there didn´t have time to be a teenager, you were child and inmediatly after you were adult. You didn´t have money, food, clothes... you had to work younger and you finished as a builder or to join the army, there weren´t opportunieties, your life was marked since you was born.
I think child become responsible at an early age.
3.- Frank Macourt went to school in a terrible temper, then in no mood for teaching. That day he didn´t have patience, his compartment wasn´t normally for his students.
Hector tryed Frank´s patience.
In Spanish hit students is normally in that time, but in America no. I think that one of the problem is the differents races´kinds. I think that in this case Frank´s compartment coul make diffences between races.
In the question about he miss Irland I forgot say that he went back to Dublim to do a doctorate and he was homsick and drunk too much so he didn´t miss Irland,
Well-done Imma, you broke the ice!
You´re doing very well. We´ll only have to check some spelling and expression problems together, when back to class.
1.His first years in New York were more difficult.At the begining, he worked nights to help pay for his course. He always tired. After four years at New York University, he managed to get his teacher's license, but he had problems to find a teaching job, because schools told him to his Irish accent is going to be a problem.
In my opinion, he doesn't miss Irland. He thinks his past is useless and his life was miserable there.
I think also, because in the Chapter 15 he describes how is the situation in the public shools of America and he has an optimistic opinion about this, so he wiews the USA as a land of opportunties.
2.Because, he was teenager he went to school until his was fourteen. If he wasn't polite to his parents, they hit his across the face with a belt. They grew up, gota boring job, get married...etc. In a few years they went to England to work as a builder or to join the army. Novadays, the teenagers ar impolites, they don't have respect rules and they smile of teachers in class, they are troubles in us society. They are too much spoilt they have everything they need so they don't know value of things and I think this isn't good.
3.Unfortunately this situations are more common in the present. Students are disobedient and for teacher isn't easy to control his nervous. I disagree with Frank's reaction, but I understand him.
1-At first Mr McCourt had a very hard life in the USA. He had low-paying jobs in New York and also was in the army. He finally managed to get a degree and became a teacher. In spite of all this, he saw the US as a land of opportunities, because in the world of education, if you work hard, you need not teach classrooms with problematic children. Back in Ireland, his childhood was even harder than life in New York. As a teacher, he used his childhood stories for didactic purposes.
2-He says this because life conditions in Ireland were very hard. Teenagers were forced to work since an early age. Irish teenagers were not like American teenagers. His students in the US were rich and carefree. In spite of this, Mr. McCourt was surprised that they hardly ever smiled.
3-I think that Mr. McCourt should not have hit Hector with the magazine. He lost his nerve and patience. His behaviour was bad, he set a bad example for his students. Besides, it is only natural for a Cuban, who faces racism in the USA, to believe that the teacher hit him for racist reasons.
hola
MIGRATION
1.The author feels like living at home as an American citizen. On page 33 you can see an example of his feelings when he said: “ Why coudn´t I be alive …when men rode horses across deserts an protected their families from enemies and wild animals with their guns? I loved that part of American history”. There is also another one on page 39 when McCourt talked about when he arrived in America few years ago and he was at the bottom of the ladder as well as his students and their families. He understood they fears and confusions and said I feel at home with them all. But when you really see his feelings is on page 51 when he decided to go to Dublin to do a doctorate in English, well he was homesick and drunk too much and though about New York, the schools, the bars, the friends-HE WANTED TO GO GOME.
He doesn´t miss Ireland, he just remember it at as place where he lived in his miserable childhood. He likes telling stories about Ireland and his family ´life to show us how was his life in the past.
On chapter 4,when he returned to American from Ireland he didn´t realize at that moment that the USA was a land of opportunities since he had no idea he´d become a teacher. He never dreamed he could climb so high in the world coming from Ireland but he worked and studied hard and became a teacher. On chapter 15 he really demonstrated that the USA is a land of opportunities where you can reach and climb in the school system for example but in this chapter it wasn´t his case since he had other things to resolve.
2. I think McCourt says that because it is a way to compare American teenagers and Irish teenagers. Irish children don´t have time to live a normal adolescence since they became adults without noticed it. They just have to think about a boring job and got married. They cannot even think about clothes, money or studies. One of the way to get out from Ireland is going to England to have more chance as a bluider or to join the army.
3.Hector is a Cuban boy but maybe he has also Irish origin. Well his mother used to sell herself to men in Havana. He is also ashamed of his mother. When Melvin, the guidance counsellor talked with McCourt he explained him that Hector wanted to know more about Irish people that the reason he included him in his classroom but the bad incident of the magazine worsen the feelings and thoughts of Hector against Irish people, he demonstrated that he have a personal resentment to Irish people maybe due to his mother of father and perhaps this is the reason of his angry to McCourt but a bad actuation from the teacher.
Hello everybody!
It´s weird, isn´t it? that a person like Mc Court doesn´t miss his country of origin. Maybe -as you suggest- it is due to the fact that with so many races and cultures in the USA it´s easy for everyone to feel at home.
Mª José, that´s an interesting theory about Hector!
The posterior years to the crack of the 29 were difficult for the Western countries, but they for USA were very hard, mainly after the crazy years 20. Perhaps this motivates the parents of McCourt emigrate to Ireland. Although he was born in USA the lived all their childhood in Ireland, country very different from USA, because it is a small old country of the old Europe, with few natural and economic resources, with a traditional culture, a religion puritan Catholic, and an archaic society, totally different to the young USA, with more natural and economic resources, with an important mixture of races, religions and cultures, with a more modern society and free.
Their childhood lapsed in a family unpleasant atmosphere with multitude of physical and emotional problems. Their childhood would remain marked for all their life for this scar.
The return to USA would be very hard, but with effort and grit succeeds in working and study at the same time, for what he learns how to value the things and the effort that you are needed in order to get them. For that reason he doesn't understand American teenagers that have everything and they don't know how to value neither thank what they have.
hello
Hellow friends, Pilar sorry, I have been ill, I hope doing my exercises
as soon as possible.
1.F.McCourt had a very hard childhood in Irelan and another hard time working and studying to became teacher.He doesn´t miss Ireland, it is impossible after his life there, but his life in Ireland was very important for him.
The writer arrived to New York with very bad feeling about his life, all that as a result his poor , miserable childhood.He thinks his life in USA must be better than his life in Ireland.
2.Frank McCourt said that, because in Ireland when he was a teenager the way of living there was horrible, his mother had to beg for money to feed her children, and it was normal teenager working for earn some money for his family.they didn´t study, they had to work as a builder or to join the army.
3. Hector was a cuban boy with very hard troubles.He has ashamed of his mother, and he has got sexual problems himself.The incident of the magazin opened a racism problem because Hector hates Irish people, he thinks irish people drink and hit people for no reason.Hector has a bad stereotype of irish people, I think I disagree with the teacher way to resolv the problem , but at the moment in general there are the same problem in our country, students are disobedient and the teachers have many problems to resolv this situation.
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