How Frank Survived Poverty is something that many of us will never have to face. I never could have survived growing up the way Frank McCourt did with the constant dampness of things, an alcoholic father, religion shoved down my throat and family members dying left and right. It makes you wonder how he and his family did it. Was it that he was happy with what he had or was it more than that? Frank may not have had many materialistic items or a very good father but he did many things that helped him along the way. Stories of heroes and other fiction, father figures and dreams all kept him going and not giving up hope. Literature in any form was something that seemed to bring Frank comfort and enjoyment. Once he said that Shakespeare was like having jewels in his mouth. The words of books had more meaning to Frank than most would have gotten out of it. Books allowed Frank to go off to different places. “It’s lovely to know the world can’t interfere with the inside of your head”. (202) They allowed much time to pass and gave him things to think and dream. Yet while he was still poverty stricken and adults wanted to rule his whole life, including his mind, he always had what he has learned and the stories he read kept to himself that no one could take away. When Frankie was very young his father told him the story of Cuchulain. The reason Frank liked this story so much was because it gave him a connection to his father. “He finishes the story and lets me sip his tea. It’s bitter, but I am happy there on his lap”. Frank called it “his” story and protected it as if it truly was. He pushes his brother down and beats up Freddie Leibowitz because he thinks that they tried to steal it from him. Another story that his father told him that gave him comfort was the Angel on the Seventh Step. Frank treats this imaginary angel like a friend. He tells the angel about his problems, dreams and fears. He is able to talk the angel about the things he doesn’t feel he can talk about with his mother and father. He imagines this angel speaking to him and comforting him by saying things like “Fear not”. Beyond Frank’s world of imagination and books were all of the male figures in his life. Frank’s father was never around much so he didn’t receive any type of guidance from him. Frank said some where in the novel that his father was like two different p... ... middle of paper ... ...d imagination that seemed to keep Frank going but it was also his dream of a better life, the dream to provide for his family so they wouldn’t be hungry anymore. Most of all, it was his dream to go America. Frank had the idea of how wonderful America was. He thought there was people with perfect teeth and that they have so much food that there is some left on the plates after dinner. He thought every family had a bathroom and every lives happily ever after. He wanted badly to one day be able to be the man of the family and bring all of them to America so they can all live in luxury together. Frank will do anything to accomplish these goals. He works hard and ever resorts to stealing. Frank must be commended as well for his will power and want to survive. If he didn’t start out with that then nothing could have helped him. He may not have been a strong boy physically buy psychologically he was powerful. Although Frank barely had a shirt on his back, he had something that made him rich in another way…his mind. “Stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it. You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.”
Judging a book by its cover is like judging a person by the words that describe him or her. Some of them are accurate, but the physical being of a person can tell you a story untold. In Frank McCourt’s memoir Angela’s Ashes, the reader witnesses what the description of a single character can do to the voice of a piece. Frank’s use of pathos and characterization when it came to Angela, his mother, spoke volumes in his memoir, but when applied to the big screen, her character was amplified. It was then the reader realized that Angela’s true effect and purpose in Frank’s life was to be his main influence.
The first way that Frank overcomes adversity in his memoir is when he gets a job as a paper delivery boy to help support his mother Angela and his siblings because his father drinks away all of his money at the local pubs. “Mrs. O’Connell gives me telegrams to deliver to Mr.Harrington, the Englishman with the dead wife that was born and bred in Limerick…” (326). This quote tells of how he has to work and do work that he really does not like to help out his family and their situation. Frank is overcoming adversity by providing for his family and saving money to
This work has a lot of relevance to today; for one thing, there is still poverty. Poverty is a hardship that millions of people must face everyday. And relating to poverty, there is still discrimination between social classes. Hunger is very prominent today. This is another problem that millions must face. Also, in relation to the book, many people have problems with alcohol. And many people still make fun of one another, and succumb to incestuous pleasure.
I wasn’t poor but I wasn’t rich either, I was surrounded by an environment in which many people where in need of shelter and food because their families could not afford both. Just like poverty played a major role in my life, so did an ambitious and hardworking environment. Because those people I would see every day on the streets without food or a home, were the ones that had a bigger passion than anyone else, to one day be able to have a stable job and home for their family. This has shaped me to be who I am today, because I greatly appreciate what I have and take advantage of the opportunities I am given because not everyone is lucky enough to have what one
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.
Frank has an interesting view on the way man has progressed morally. I think that he says that we don’t really know our morals until we have them truly questioned. In this he implies that the people who have strong morals, not only will stay true to them, but will survive. An example of this is Randy Bragg. Randy, on the day of nuclear fallout, stopped on the side of the road to help a woman. This shows that he has respect for the human race as a whole. The opposite of this was Edgar Quisenbury. Edgar valued nothing but money. In the end, the absence of money caused Edgar to become an example of Darwin’s “Only the strong” theory as he shot himself.
Opinion: Why do you think Frank has confessed at this time? What is his motive? Has he underestimated his brother, or has he estimated correctly?
A dark haired boy with fair skin, little Frankie was forced to wear the same clothes day after day and be happy that he even had anything. The family's breakfast consisted of tea and sometimes bread. Dinner was usually a piece of fried bread dipped in more tea and supper was bread and tea and jam and sometimes mashed potatoes with butter and salt. Born to a father who became an alcoholic at a early age, Frank was used to those long waits on Friday nights, payday. The day when all the other fathers came home and gave the money to their families and then took some for themselves to go out and drink. Malachy McCourt was different, he took all his money, spent it on the drink and came home singing songs from his days in Ireland. He would stumble in the door and get the two young boys up and make them promise to die for Ireland. He would teach them his favorite song and they would all sing until Malachy passed out.
Frank Wheeler yearns to appear mysterious, intelligent, and manly, causing him to gloss over his true identity and lose touch with himself. In his youth, he dreams of riding the railroad, going so far as to plan different routes for his trip on a railroad map. He rehearses how he will act, talk, and interact with other people and buys outfits from an Army and Navy Store that perfectly convey a rugged image. Frank conceals the signs of his true self—Boy Scout emblems and the immaturity of adolescence—in exchange for this foreign identity. Others knock him down because they doubt he will play the role well, but from that point onward, Frank aims to become a man. His life in New York City reflects this goal: Frank, a war veteran, shares a one-room apartment with his friends which he uses with the girls he brings home. With increasi...
However, she never really experienced the actual life of living in poverty as the majority of people living in poverty experience. Barbara, an educated white women had just that on other people living in poverty, because of the color of her skin and education level that is more often than not restricted from people living in poverty. She was able and more qualified for jobs than other people living amongst the status she was playing. She also was able to more readily seek better benefits than people living in poverty. When she first start her journey in Florida she had a car, a car that in most cases people living in poverty do not have. She was also able to use the internet to find local jobs and available housing in the area that many people living in poverty are restricted from. Another great benefit she had was the luxury of affording a drug detox cleansing her of drugs deemed bad. Many people living in poverty do not have much extra cash laying around much less fifty dollars to afford a detox for prescription drugs. She also had the luxury to afford her prescription drugs, another option that many people living in poverty do not have. Another element that made Barbara’s experience not that genuine was the fact that she was not providing for anybody other than herself. Twenty-two percent of kids under the age of 18 are living below the poverty line (http://npc.umich.edu/poverty/#5) , Barbara did not have to provide for pets or kids which would of changed her experience altogether of living in poverty. Not to belittle Barbara’s experience, but many factors of what life is like living in poverty were not taken into consideration during her
Frank’s mother, Dorothy loved working, but as Frank got older his father made her relinquish working to stay home and supervise Frank. Working made her feel like she could be her own woman and be free of a standard marriage of the wife just running the home. Franks states, “My mother did not work then, though she had worked at waitressing and in the bars in town-and she liked working.” (Ford 33). This reveals that she liked the constant change of people that go in and out of bars and restaurants. She felt freedom in this. Frank’s father not allowing Frank’s mother to work
After this event, the reader can really see that deep down, the protagonist loves and cares for his father. As he hears his father enter the house babbling gibberish, he begins getting worried.
Poverty is unexpectedly one of the most misunderstood words there is. People instantly think of poverty as being poor and not having money. What they don’t know, is that poverty actually means to have a lack of a basic need which doesn’t always mean it’s about money. Poverty has about 8 different meanings; economic, social, spiritual, political, intellectual, emotional, psychological, and ethical poverty. In the book The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and the St. Anthony’s experience, they both are examples of different types of poverty as these two examples compare with each other as well as differ from each other in many ways.
Poverty is defined as: the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. Poverty does not care what age, sex, race, or religion you are, poverty is not just what you see on television, it doesn’t just happen in third world countries, it is real and can be right in front of your face. I remember hearing stories on the radio and television of celebrities that were homeless before they made it big. After Jim Carrey’s father lost his job, they found themselves living out of a van. Charlie Chaplin was homeless and searching for food at the age of 14 after his father died and his mother was committed to a mental asylum. It can happen to anyone.
The notion of poverty has a very expanded meaning. Although all three stories use poverty as their theme, each interprets it differently. Consequently, it does not necessarily mean the state of extreme misery that has been described in ?Everyday Use?. As Carver points out, poverty may refer to poverty of one?s mind, which is caused primarily by the lack of education and stereotyped personality. Finally, poverty may reflect the hopelessness of one?s mind. Realizing that no bright future awaits them, Harlem kids find no sense in their lives. Unfortunately, the satisfaction of realizing their full potential does not derive from achieving standards that are unachievable by others. Instead, it arises uniquely from denigrating others, as the only way to be higher than someone is to put this person lower than you.