Angela's Ashes: Post 2

In the next section of Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt’s family hits rock bottom in the United States after Frank’s younger sister, Margaret, dies as an infant. This tragedy nearly drives Frank’s mother insane with grief and causes his father to rely on alcohol more than ever. It is very painful to watch Mr. McCourt revert to his old drinking habits after breaking them while his daughter was alive; his daughter’s life was like a window into the kind of man and father Mr. McCourt could be if he was motivated to stay away from alcohol and work for his family. When Margaret dies, this window is closed. I think that Mrs. McCourt mourns not only for the death of her daughter, but also for the end of the possibility of a good life for her family that disappeared with her daughter’s life.
The family then becomes dysfunctional and lives at the mercy of neighbors, who make meals and take care of the four McCourt children. The McCourt family loses a lot of pride in this period, because of the fact that they are so dependent on the goodwill of others for their survival. Mrs. Leibowitz is one neighbor who helps the McCourt family after Margaret dies. Frankie says that Mrs. Leibowitz “holds my mother in her arms. Shush, now, shush. Babies go like that. It happens, missus” (38). Although Mrs. Leibowitz is very kind to help Mrs. McCourt, having another woman in her house, cooking food for her family and changing her children’s diapers must make Mrs. McCourt feel ashamed and inept.
The McCourts’ loss of pride is only increased by Mrs. McCourt’s cousins, who send the family to Ireland to be taken care of by Mrs. McCourt’s mother. The cousins don’t even bother asking the family if they want to move to Ireland, and pack them onto the ship to Ireland like animals who have become a nuisance. With this action, the cousins made an ethical decision about the McCourt family’s fate. They know that the family is barely surviving on their own, and the cousins decide that the best solution is to send them to Ireland, instead of helping them in New York. While there is nothing wrong with this choice, I think that the way they made decision—without consulting the McCourts at all—was unethical and degrading.
Life in Ireland also treats the family harshly. Mr. McCourt still can’t find a job and the family faces prejudice. The McCourts don’t seem to belong anywhere: in the United States, they were looked down upon for being Irish, and in Ireland, they are discriminated against because they are American. Mr. McCourt in particular is unwelcome almost everywhere he goes, because he is from the infamous north of Ireland. This hinders him in finding a much needed job, because “There is no hope of a laboring man with a North of Ireland accent getting a job in Limerick” (63). This lack of belonging that the McCourts face everywhere they go dampens their morale and takes away their confidence, only exacerbating the shame that they already feel.
In addition to injecting humor into the serious topic of his childhood, Frank McCourt does a fabulous job of telling the story with the innocence that he felt as a six year old. He does not always know what is going on and he is at the mercy of his parents and their economic problems, because he can’t control their decisions or their incomes. Reading about his innocence and helplessness makes me afraid for Frankie and his future.


Work Cited:
McCourt, Frank. Angela’s Ashes. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.

*I wanted to underline all the "Angela's Ashes" titles in this post, but blogspot wouldn't let me.

Angela's Ashes: Post 1

For my outside reading book, I am reading Angela’s Ashes, by Frank McCourt. The book is a memoir about the author’s childhood in the United States and in Ireland. Frank’s parents were Irish immigrants to New York. The beginning section that I read this week took place in New York, although his parents will soon move the family back to Ireland. Frank’s family is poor, and his father has a difficult time holding down a job, because he is an alcoholic. This leaves his mother, Angela, in a very difficult place, because she has five children to feed and no source of income. In a way, Angela has to make an ethical decision each week—should she tell the grocer that she needs to get food now, and will pay him back later, even though she does not know when she will next get money? Or should she be more honest financially but let her many young children go hungry? The tough decision makes Angela hopeless and desperate, and it also makes Frank feel sad for her. This is shown through his reaction when Frank looks “out at Mam at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette, drinking tea, and crying. I want to get up and tell her that I’ll be a man soon and I can get a job in the place with the big gate…” (28). Coming from a four year old, this statement is very moving and shows the reader what desperate straits the family was in.
Frank’s father seems to be the polar opposite of his mother in terms of ethics—he comes home many Friday nights drunk, having spent his entire paycheck on alcohol, and he doesn’t act guilty about it when he is drunk or when he is sober. Angela is obviously unhappy with his irresponsible habits, but his children don’t hold it against him. In fact, Frank seems to like his father as much or more than he likes his mother, which just goes to show that good ethics don’t always reap popularity.
Although it would undoubtedly be easy for McCourt to sound bitter or unhappy about his underprivileged childhood as he writes his memoir, his voice doesn’t come across that way at all. On the contrary, he writes about his family’s situation with a dry sense of humor and even a touch of cynicism. This makes the book worlds more interesting than it would be if he wrote with a woeful tone. For instance, when he is giving the reader a preview of life in Ireland, he describes how everyone is constantly wet, because their houses are not leak proof and their clothes never dry. He then goes on to say that churches’ dryness, not their religion, was what motivated Irish people to be so religious: “Limerick gained a reputation for piety, but we knew it was only the rain” (12). I really enjoy reading this humorous perspective on what was actually a harsh reality.

McCourt, Frank. Angela’s Ashes. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.

*I wanted to underline "Angela's Ashes" but blogger wouldn't let me.