Movie: Angela’s Ashes
Angela’s Ashes is a 1999 movie based on the memoir
of the same name by Frank McCourt.
It focuses on the poverty of the McCourt
family in Limerick, Republic of Ireland. After a series of misfortunes the
family who had emigrated to America are forced to return to Ireland. At school
children encounter masters who are too happy to inflict corporal punishment.
The film clip shows boys punished for
fighting and the master’s anti-American sentiments.
Below is how part of the scene reads in
the original book.
There are seven
masters in Leamy’s National School and
they all have leather straps, canes, blackthorn sticks. They hit you with the
sticks on the shoulder, the back, the legs, and, especially the hands. If they
hit you on the hands it’s called a slap. They hit you if you’re late, if you
have a leaky nib on your pen, if you laugh, if you talk, and if you don’t know
things.
They hit you if
you don’t know why God made the world, if you don’t know the patron saint of
Limerick, if you can’t recite the Apostle’s Creed, if you can’t add nineteen to
forty-seven, if you can’t subtract nineteen from forty-seven, if you don’t know
the chief towns and products of the thirty-two counties of Ireland, if you
can’t find Bulgaria on the wall map that’s blotted with spit, snot, and blobs
of ink thrown by angry pupils expelled forever.
They hit you if
you can’t say your name in Irish, if you can’t say the Hail Mary in Irish, if
you can’t ask for a lavatory pass in Irish.
It helps to
listen to the big boys ahead of you. They can tell you about the master you
have now, what he likes and what he hates.
One master will
hit you if you don’t know that Eamon de Valera is the greatest man that ever
lived. Another master will hit you if you don’t know that Michael Collins was
the greatest man that ever lived.
Mr. Benson hates
America and you have to remember to hate America or he’ll hit you.
Mr. O’Dea hates
England and you have top remember to hate England or he’ll hit you.
If you ever say
anything good about Oliver Cromwell they’ll all hit you.
Even if they slap
you six times on each hand with the ash plant or the blackthorn with the knobs
you must not cry. You’ll be a sissy. There are boys who might jeer at you and
mock you in the street but even they have to be careful because the day will
come when the master hits and slaps them and they have to keep the tears behind
their eyes or be disgraced forever. Some boys say it is better to cry because
that pleases the masters. If you don’t cry the masters hate you because you’ve made
them look weak before the class and they promise themselves the next time they
have you up they’ll draw tears or blood or both.
Extracted from Angela’s Ashes, By
Frank McCourt, published by Flamingo, 1997.
Video and picture credit: Paramount
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