Angela’s Ashes - Frank McCourt's Love/Hate Relationship with his Father
Angela’s Ashes is a memoir of Frank McCourt’s childhood and the
difficulties he faced whilst growing up. His family were very poor and
moved from America to Limerick to try and live an easier life. Frank’s
father was constantly out of a job and never had enough money to
support his family.
Frank and his father have a very interesting relationship. Throughout
the book, Frank constantly changes the way he feels for his father.
There are times when Frank completely despises him and others where he
idolises him. At the beginning of the book, Frank explains that
Malachy was “the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father,” giving the
reader a bad impression of him. As the story moves on, there are
several places where you can see that Frank loves his father, despite
all the hard times he has put him and his family through.
Malachy is constantly out of a job, leaving his family to survive on
their own through poverty. He uses every single penny they have at the
pubs; it drives Frank mad and he loses all respect for him. Frank
completely loathes his father when he upsets his mother. He makes her
angry which Frank cannot stand.
“My heart is banging away in my chest and I don’t know what to do
because I know I’m raging inside like my mother”.
Malachy comes home drunk so often; the three boys know exactly what’s
going on and what they have to do.
“We know Dad has done the bad thing and we know you can make anyone
suffer by not talking to him.
” Frank knew what his father deserved for making his mother unhappy
and didn’t hesitate to ignore him when he’d done the ‘bad thing’.
As they couldn’t rely on Malachy, Frank knew it was his j...
... middle of paper ...
...wever, the only
time he despised and hated him was when he was under the influence of
the drink. Malachy would use the money for his addiction but nothing
else. If Malachy did not have a drinking problem, he would probably do
anything for his children. When he wasn’t drunk, Malachy had so much
love and care for his children and would give them anything. The books
leaves the reader with a warm, affection their love for one another is
and this impression leaves you to overlook the previous feelings you
had for Malachy as an incompetent father.
Frank loved him so much and cherished the moments he spent with him.
He looked up to him with much admiration. Frank loved spending time
with him and idolised him. Frank only hated his father for keeping his
mother and brothers in crippling hunger but loved him when he was
sober, and trying to look after the family.
No one really thinks about how devastating it might be to lose a sibling when you're young. However, Holden Caulfield, the main character in J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye,” has to experience this devastation. Holden is merely 13 years old when his 11 year old brother Allie dies of leukemia. The two boys were extremely close and Holden is traumatized, he spends that night punching out windows with his bare hands. Many articles have been written about the adverse effects of a sibling’s death has on a child, even later in life, and Holden was surely effected. After Allie’s death, Holden isolates himself, begins to do worse in school, and grasps onto the concept on innocence and childhood and cannot let go.
The first barrier to a better life had to do with surviving poverty or the absence of certain privileges. In Angela’s Ashes, Frank, the protagonist of the book, along with his family had to endure persistent rains, exposure to disease and starvation. Frank and Malachy Jr. had to resort to stealing food several ...
Other than trying to make it day to day at their company Frank is one of the things these three ladies have in common. Frank is their sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical, bigot of a boss. He lusts after most of the women under his authority at the office but has taken a special liking to Doralee, who despises him. Though despicable as a man he has just been promoted to Head of that division. He has a loving wife who ends up divorcing him to be with one of his associates. He gets another promotion and has to leave the country, he is never to be heard from again.
In Angela’s Ashes, the father Malachy is inflicted with the disease of alcoholism, and his need for the drink leads him to use his paycheck to buy alcohol instead of using it for the basic needs of his family. Countless times, Malachy’s alcoholism harms or gets in the way of his family. Not only this, but Malachy is blind to what his behavior is doing to his family. Because he does not use his money on food for his family, they are forced to beg and accept help from friends and strangers—and yet he is too proud to admit this. Repeated instances such as when he asked the RIAA person for enough money just for one pint—when the money was supposed to be for a cab to get he and his son back to the station without having to walk. Or even when his first child was born and he was too drunk for the hospital staff to interpret what he was saying he wanted to name his son. There are too many of the same repeated episodes—he gets a job, brings home money at first, then just stops altogether and uses it at the pub, he gets fired from his job, and his family is worse off now, they are forced to move or live off the kindness of others. It’s the same cycle over and over again. Lives are lost along the way—the innocents, the children. And still Malachy depends on the drink. He is a constant disappointment—and spirals the family deeper and deeper into poverty over the years, mainly because of his addiction.
“When Dad went crazy, we all had our own ways of shutting down and closing off…” (Walls 115).In Jeannette Walls memoir, The Glass Castle, Walls enlightens the reader on what it’s like to grow up with a parent who is dependent on alcohol, Rex Walls, Jeannette’s father, was an alcoholic. Psychologically, having a parent who abuses alcohol is the worst thing for a child. The psychological state of these children can get of poorer quality as they grow up. Leaving the child with psychiatric disorders in the future and or being an alcoholic as well.
“In public interviews my editor has advised me, regarding my parents, to use the phrase, “They did the best they knew how.” I concur. They really did do the best they knew how.”
“And now that you’re becoming successful, you feel bad about proving your father wrong.” – Pavel
“...I’m feeling sick inside, like the part of me that’s three wants to come out of my
It is a common view that times for the Irish majority in the 1930's and 40's were very hard. Especially for the Irish Catholic families with the stereotypical drunken father, emotionally wrecked mother, kids running round her with her sore back from the next child ready too be born. In Angela's Ashes, Mc Court examines his childhood experiences, the tragedies, hardships, learning, all involved with growing up.One of the most interesting aspects of the writing in Angela's Ashes is how the text is written, from Mc Courts interpretation of the situation at his age he was at the time, the spelling and grammar also indicates that the child is writing, not the adult. This contributes immensely to the emotions and enjoyment evoked from reading the book. It also better describes how a child actually sees the things going around them, and what they may be thinking. Personally, sometimes is made me think for a while about how I interpreted things I saw when I was that age, and the fun I had being a 'kid' with my sister.McCourt describes his brothers and sister, even the ones that died and how much he enjoyed growing up with them, how they cared and loved for each other.
Occasion: The author wrote this, to relive his experiences as a young boy living in Limerick, Ireland. Specifically the day his brother and he returned home from school to find an empty and wet living room and kitchen. The heavy rains flooded downstairs and forced his parents to "move in" upstairs.
“There is no way in which parents can evade having a determining effect upon their
“I can’t handle the pain anymore,” I cried again, “we need to go to the
Joe is Sharing with Kerewin his feelings about family, and childhood. "I've often thought that maybe what happens to you as a child determines everything about you. What you are and what you do, a...
Angela McCourt is the mother of Angela’s Ashes main character Frank McCourt, wife to the alcoholic Malachy McCourt Sr. If one were to judge her simply based on actions without any context it would be rather repulsive, she has an affair with her cousin, is addicted to smoking, cannot provide any sort of living for her family and is filling her sons heads with absurd dreams of a better life in America. However with context of the circumstances not only are not only understandable, but quite admirable. On numerous occasions she demonstrates characteristics of being a loving mother, whether it’s raising her sons to be kind, hardworking, well-mannered men, to even sacrificing her own dignity as
"I made so many stupid mistakes, disrespecting my friends and family. Thinking drugs were the thing to do. I was stupid!"