Archive: Angela's Ashes

Angela's Ashes is a memior by Frank McCourt about his past and how his parents meet in Brooklyn, New York. His mother, Angela, becomes pregnant with Frank, and marries Malachy, the father of her child. Angela continues to struggle to feed her growing family of sons, while Malachy spends his wages on alcohol. Frank’s much-loved baby sister, Margaret, dies and Angela falls into depression. The McCourts decide to return to Ireland. More troubles plague the McCourts in Ireland: Angela has a miscarriage, Frank’s two younger brothers die, and Malachy continues to drink away the family’s money.



Plot Summary
The narrator, Frank McCourt, describes how his parents meet in Brooklyn, New York. After his mother, Angela, becomes pregnant with Frank, she marries Malachy, the father of her child. Angela struggles to feed her growing family of sons, while Malachy spends his wages on alcohol. Frank’s much-loved baby sister, Margaret, dies and Angela falls into depression. The McCourts decide to return to Ireland. More troubles plague the McCourts in Ireland: Angela has a miscarriage, Frank’s two younger brothers die, and Malachy continues to drink away the family’s money.

Frank’s childhood is described as a time of great deprivation, but of good humor and adventure as well. When the first floor of the house floods during the winter, Angela and Malachy announce that the family will leave the cold damp of the first floor, which they call “Ireland,” and move to the warm, cozy second floor, which they call “Italy.” Although Malachy’s alcoholism uses up all of the money for food, he earns Frank’s love and affection by entertaining him with stories about Irish heroes and the people who live on their lane.

Over the course of a few years, Angela gives birth to two sons, Michael and Alphonsus. Alphosus is called “Alphie” for short. As Frank grows older, the narration increasingly focuses on his exploits at school. When Frank turns ten, he is confirmed (Confirmation is a ritual that makes one an official Christian or Catholic. When Frank was growing up, people were confirmed around ages seven to ten). Right after his confirmation, Frank falls ill with typhoid fever and must stay in the hospital for months. There, he gets his first introduction to Shakespeare. Frank finds comfort in stories of all kinds, from Shakespeare to movies to newspapers. By the time he returns to school, his gift for language is obvious. In particular, Frank’s flair for storytelling gets him noticed by his teacher.

With the onset of World War II, many fathers in Limerick go to England to find work and send money back to their families. Eventually, Malachy goes as well, but he fails to send money home. Frank begins to work for Mr. Hannon. This is the first in a series of jobs. Frank will go on to work for Mr. Timoney, Uncle Ab, the post office, Mrs. Finucane, and Mr. McCaffrey. Frank enjoys the feeling of responsibility he gets from working, and he dreams of saving enough to provide his family with food and clothes.

The McCourts get evicted from their lodgings and must move in with Angela’s cousin Laman. Angela begins sleeping with Laman, an arrangement that makes Frank increasingly uncomfortable and angry. He also begins to feel guilty about his own sexual feelings. The priests’ strict mandates against masturbation make Frank feel guilty when he masturbates.

While working as a messenger boy, Frank begins a sexual relationship with a customer, Theresa Carmody, who eventually dies of consumption, leaving Frank heartbroken. Frank saves enough money to get to New York. On his first night there, he attends a party and sleeps with an American woman. Though sad to leave behind Ireland and his family, Frank has great expectations for the future.

Characters
Other Minor Characters and Source for the listed Characters Above
 * Frank McCourt
 * Frank McCourt is not only the book's author, he is also the narrator and protagonist of his life story. His perspective he wrote his story in is not as an adult looking back on his childhood, but in the perspective of an adolescent.
 * Angela McCourt
 * Frank's mother, Angela, is a very loving mother that does not self pity herself although her life is extremely difficult. She continuously deals with her husbands addiction to alcohol and the deaths of three of her children. Despite the condition of living and how hard life is, Angela always considers her children and their welfare above all else.
 * Malachy McCourt Sr.
 * Malachy has an extreme addiction to alcohol spending all his wages and dole money on his addiction while his children starve. Frank McCourt reveals that the despair inflicted on their family by his father's addiction does not mean that his father obviously loves his sons.
 * Malachy McCourt Jr.
 * One year younger than Frank, Malachy McCourt Jr. is Frank's younger brother. He is named after his father and is quite attractive compared to Frank, he manages to charm people often.
 * Oliver and Eugene McCourt
 * Oliver and Eugene are Frank's younger twin brothers. Shortly after the McCourts arrive in Limerick they die within several months of one another devastating their mother, Angela.
 * Michael McCourt
 * Born in Limerick Michael is the second youngest brother. Frank believes Michael was left by an angel on the seventh step of their house.
 * Alphie McCourt
 * The youngest brother to Frank.
 * Aunt Maggie
 * She is Angela's sister proving her loyalty to the family by helping them through their tough times.
 * Pa Keating
 * Warm and caring, Pa is Frank's uncle. He boosts Frank's confidence and encourages him to follow his own instincts.
 * Ab Sheehan
 * Ab is Angela's brother making him Frank's uncle. He was dropped on his head when he was a child, damaging his brain.
 * Grandma
 * She helps the McCourts whenever she is able, although she reamins suspicious of Angela's husband Malachy Sr.'s northern Irish roots.

Themes
Sparknotes Reference
 * The Limitations Imposed by Class
 * Because of social snobbery, Frank is unfairly denied many opportunities. Although he is an intelligent, quick-witted, and eager student, he is prevented from becoming an altar boy and deprived of chances to further his education, because when people see him dressed in rags, they shun him. Frank’s natural fighting instincts and the encouragement of a few family members help him to oppose and overcome the limits set by his low-class status.
 * Hunger
 * Frank is plagued by hunger throughout his childhood. The McCourts never have enough food to eat, and the food they do manage to procure is scant and unsatisfying. Hunger is mentioned over and over again until it becomes a haunting presence in the narrative. Frank’s father often drinks away the money the family needs for food, and comes home wailing about the plight of Ireland and the Irish.

Motifs
Sparknotes Reference
 * Anti-English Sentiment
 * In the opening lines of his memoir, McCourt ascribes some of the sorrow he endured as a child to “the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years.” Most of the adult characters in the memoir condemn past English invasions of Ireland and contemporary English repression of the Irish. Frank is brought up assuming that the English are essentially immoral and evil. He is taught from the start that Ireland thrived before the English came and spoiled their way of life. Once, when his father is outside trying to beat the fleas out of a mattress, a passerby watches and says that there were no fleas in “ancient Ireland”—the English brought them over to drive the Irish “out of our wits entirely.” “I wouldn’t put it past the English,” he adds. A revealing turn occurs when Frank hears Mr. O’Halloran say that the Irish, as well as the English, committed atrocities in battle. From this point on, Frank starts to question the assumption that Irishmen versus Englishmen means good versus evil.
 * Stories, Songs, and Folktales
 * As a young child, Frank loves listening to his father’s boundless repertoire of stories and folktales. Often Malachy returns from the bar drunk and gregarious, telling stories of the lives of great Irish heroes, or of neighbors who live down the lane. Song has a important place in Irish culture, and bits and pieces of rhymes from old tunes pervade Angela’s Ashes. Most of the songs tell of better days gone by and express regret at joy remembered in times of grave suffering. Lines like “Oh, for one of those hours of gladness, gone, alas, like our youth too soon” resound throughout the memoir. Frank later finds comfort in hearing Shakespeare, P. D. Wodehouse, and songs and poems read aloud by his friends and family.
 * Guilt
 * Throughout his childhood, Frank is burdened by guilt at his own sinfulness, particularly the sinfulness of his sexual thoughts and behavior. He frequently worries that he is damned or that he has damned other people. McCourt suggests that his guilt results primarily from his Catholicism. In the days of Frank’s childhood, priests tirelessly cautioned against the evils of masturbation and sex—their admonishments haunt Frank’s thoughts. As he matures, Frank learns to use Confession to relieve himself of guilt, and he stops feeling doomed by his natural sexual impulses.

Symbols
Sparknotes Reference
 * The River Shannon
 * The symbolism of the River Shannon changes as Frank’s outlook matures during his childhood and adolescence. Initially, the river symbolizes Limerick’s bleakness and the brooding desolation of Frank’s childhood. Frank associates the river with the endless rain that torments Limerick, which he describes as a virulent disease-carrying wetness that causes people to fall sick with coughs, asthma, consumption, and other diseases. As the memoir progresses, Frank begins to see the river as a route out of Limerick. As a result, it comes to symbolize escape, movement, and freedom. When Frank throws Mrs. Finucane’s ledger into the river—thus liberating all of her remaining debtors—he suggests that soon he, like the ledger, will use the river to leave Ireland behind and set sail across the Atlantic.
 * Ashes
 * Angela’s Ashes takes its name from the ashes which fall from Angela’s cigarettes and those in the fireplace at which she stares blankly. The entire setting of the narrative feels draped in ash—dark, decrepit, weak, lifeless, sunless. Angela’s ashes represent her crumbling hopes: her dreams of raising a healthy family with a supportive husband have withered and collapsed, leaving her with only cigarettes for comfort and the smoldering ashes of a fire for warmth.
 * Eggs
 * Unlike other families, the McCourts cannot afford to buy eggs regularly. Eggs are a familiar yet unattainable luxury, and Frank associates them with wealth and security. They become symbols of the good life that Frank wishes to provide for himself and his family. Eggs symbolize the financial security, the satisfaction, and the indulgences available beyond the boundaries of Limerick.

Adaptations

 * Angela's Ashes
 * 2000 Rated R
 * This adaptation of Frank McCourt's best-selling memoir tells the grim story of the author's impoverished childhood in 1940s Ireland, a time of devastating deprivation spent alongside starving siblings, a long-suffering mother and an alcoholic father. Emily Watson and Robert Carlysle shine in the pivotal roles of McCourt's struggling parents in this captivating biographical drama from director Alan Parker (Fame, Midnight Express).