“Angela’s Ashes” by Frank McCourt Essay

The autobiography Angelas Ashes by dog-iron McCourt tells the life of the McCourt family while animation in poverty in Limerick, Ireland during the 1930s and 1940s. frankfurter McCourt relates his difficult childhood to the reader up until the time he leaves for America at the term of nineteen. Angelas Ashes has many prevailing themes, exactly one of the most nonable is the settings relationship to the family. The setting of the book ultimately influences the choices and lifestyle of the McCourt family in many ways.Living in poverty and not being able to meet basic needs leads the characters to result to larger-than-life measures, such incidents as stopping blunt McCourts education and taking a crease to support the family. Frank is obligate to acquire the job mostly because his contract is an alcoholic and uses all the money to buy beer sooner of feeding his family. Frank describes this pattern of drinking away the money by saying when dad comes home with the drink s mell there is no money and Mom screams at him till the twins cry(42). This slip lasts until Mr.McCourt leaves to work in England and is never heard from again which forces Frank to take a job at fourteen years old. Frank takes on the role of the read/write head of the family proudly and comments Its hard to sleep when you k straightway the attached day youre fourteen and starting your first job as a man(309). Franks ability to provide monetary stability leads to greater comfort and living conditions for his family.The members of the McCourt family argon overly squeeze to beg and steal in revise to help the familys thoroughly being. Mrs.McCourt begs charities especially the St.Vincent de Paul Society for help with basic necessities for the family such as food, c considerhing, and furniture. Mrs.McCourt is even forced to beg for the familys Christmas dinner. The butcher who she begs to tells her What you can now missus, Is black pudding and tripe or a sheeps head or a pigs h ead(97). Mrs.McCourt reluctantly authoritative the pigs head and is ridiculed walking home with it. Also, the children are forced to hustle up scraps of coal for the fire from the road on Christmas Day. Frank describes the childrens humiliation by saying, Even the poorest of the poor go intot go out Christmas Day picking coal arrive at the road(99).Despite Frank McCourts horrid poverty, tiresome starving and devastating losses, Angelas Ashes is not a tragic memoir. It is in situation up lifting, funny and at times triumphant.When I look indorse on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable child hood the happy childhood is merely worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood Is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood, writes Frank McCourt of his early life Although Frank McCourts autobiography, Angelas Ashes, paints a ikon of both terrible poverty and struggles, this t ext is appealing and up lifting because of its centre on both witticism and accept. McCourts text shows the determination the great unwashed living in dreadful conditions must have in order to rise above their situations and make better lives for themselves and their fami reposes. The effect of the story, although often distress and sad, is not depressing. Frank as the young narrator describes his life events without bitterness, anger, or blame. Poverty and hardship are treated simply as if they are a fact of life, and in spite of the hard circumstances, many episodes during the easy are hilarious.Frank McCourt was born in Brooklyn in 1930, just afterwards the beginning of the Great Depression. During this time, millions of people around the world were unemployed and seek to survive. Franks father, Malachy McCourt, struggled to obtain work and lost it easily due to his alcoholism. His mother, Angela McCourt, being a good catholic wife produced five babies in four years, dev iation her unable to provide the most basic care for her children. When the baby, Margaret, died due to the dread living conditions in Brooklyn, Angela subsided into clinical depression, which went untreated. Other women in the building where the McCourts lived looked after the children until Angelas cousins arranged for the family to return to Ireland.sprightliness in Limerick was easily poorer, with a less supportive population than Brooklyn. The McCourts lived in a succession of substandard flats and houses characterized by poor sanitation and lack of electricity. The familyhad so little furniture that they shared beds, with no sheets or blankets. When Malachy McCourt took his family back to an impoverished Ireland he chose to live in the south, where he was discriminated against because of his northern name and accent. He was unable to find work and when he finally did it was too late. He had become an alcoholic, unable to control his drinking and conform to the demands of a job. This meant that his family was decrease to existence on the dole and as a result, his children starved, and were forced to pick coal up from the side of the road in order to make unnecessary the fire burning. When Malachy left for work in England he sent no money home and Angela was forced to beg for food. In these terrible situations cardinal more of her children died, Angela was hospitalized with a miscarriage and pneumonia, while Frank was hospitalized with typhoid febrility and conjunctivitis. Survival for the family was clearly difficult and life only improved when Frank found full time employment as a telegram boy. His sense of responsibility guided him to give his mother his wages in order to support the family.Life in Limerick was often associated with whim. A lot of laughter derived from religious practices such as taking the wafer at mass. Since the wafer on a regular basis stuck to peoples tongues, the boys at school had to practice sucking pieces of newspaper, sticking their tongues out for the teachers. The sins that the children confessed were also often sources of humor for the priests, and when grandmas demand to know if she should clean Franks vomit up with Holy Water is pure mockery. bless me father for I have sinned, its been a minute since my last confession, becomes a sarcastic comment on Grandmas ignorance. Poverty itself reduced the family to other slapstick situations. Pious Grandmas deliberate lie to the real estate agent when she denied that there had ever been two cortege upstairs in Angelas house has a savage humor in light of her piety. For the children Grandma was often the source of unintentional humor from the moment they heard her accent.There is humor in the situations caused by popish Catholic censorship. On one occasion Frank is evicted from the public program library for reading a book about sex left on the table. The irony here is he really wanted to read ButlersLife of the Saints but was enticed by a book th at shocked the librarian.From an early age Frank promised to support his family. To do this he stargazeed of returning to America. During the fabrication there was discussion between Frank and his father about the end in economies of the two countries when his father discussed this over the paper he further him to get a good job in the land of opportunity. These discussions were place in the context of the English oppression of Ireland. It is the symbols associated with New York that really continue Franks dream over the years. The images of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island which he kept as he left New York as a small boy were so clear that he recognized them on his trip back.McCourts hope of a better future was shared by his father, brother Malachy and hisUncle Pa Sheehan. However, it was Frank that had the determination to work at any job obtainable and to save money even id his family starved, in order to make the dream real. There is no magic in Angelas Ashes. Pover ty and hopelessness are cured by both hard work and breaking the law. Not everything that Frank did to save his fare was honorable, but his choices were made with extensive term goals in mind.Angelas Ashes depicts unrelenting poverty and the terrible consequences for individuals living in dirtiness. However, Frank McCourt shows that there is always humor in life, no matter how desperate the situation is. Combined with this is the hope that sustained McCourt and host him to seek a better life in the USA.