Discussion Topic

The depiction and impact of poverty in Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes

Summary:

Angela's Ashes depicts poverty as a pervasive and destructive force in Frank McCourt's life. Growing up in Limerick, Ireland, Frank faces constant hunger, poor living conditions, and the stigma of poverty, which deeply affects his family dynamics and personal development. The memoir highlights the resilience required to survive such adversity and the long-term emotional and psychological impacts of poverty.

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In Angela's Ashes, how does poverty impact Frank McCourt's life lessons?

One of the life lessons that McCourt gains as a result of living with poverty is understanding its role in developing human identity.  McCourt never begrudges or complains of the poverty in which he lives. However, McCourt understands the role poverty plays in defining human consciousness. This is a life lesson he gains.  McCourt sees the results of living in poverty. He sees his mother have to resort to begging, his father ravaged by alcoholism, and an impoverished condition helping to contribute to the deaths of the twins. Understanding the extent that poverty plays in defining human consciousness is a lesson that McCourt learns as a result of his experience.

Another lesson that McCourt gains as a result of poverty is the need to work.  McCourt never really complains about the work he must do.  From an early age, McCourt understands that poverty necessitates the reality of work.  If one can beat, even to the smallest degree, poverty through work, one takes it.  Delivering newspapers, reading to an old man with poor eyesight, working in coal factories, and finding work as a delivery boy are but a few of the jobs that Frank takes.  These stress the importance of work to Frank at an early age.  Frank understands the life lesson of work and strong work ethic from his poverty.  Frank does not take these jobs because of a desire for "spending money" or for recreation.  For example, he shovels coal because he needs work and the money he receives as compensation.  This is a life lesson that Frank learns because of his condition of poverty.

Finally, I would suggest that Frank learns that while one lives in poverty, his ability to dream does not necessarily live in an impoverished manner.  Frank never forgets the reality of living in poverty.  Yet, at the same time, Frank does not forget his dream of going to America.  Frank's narrative demonstrates that dreams do not have to die because of poverty.  It is in this light that Frank gains an important life lesson. One might live in poverty, but this does not mean they are poor of dreams.  Frank finds himself embracing his dream, precisely because of the poverty in which he lives.  For Frank, being able to fully understand that his dreams can still exist despite poverty becomes the penultimate life lesson.

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What are some examples of poverty in Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt?

Frank McCourt’s autobiographical novel Angela’s Ashes recounts the author’s impoverished life in Limerick, Ireland, until he left returned to America at the age of nineteen. While it is a growing-up story, it is mostly a story of Frank’s fight against poverty. He writes:

When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood. 

The McCourts went to America but come back to Limerick at a most inauspicious time, a time when the country has little to offer its people. They receive public assistance, but it is not adequate to raise them out of their abject poverty. Many things contribute to the family’s poverty, including Frank’s father’s alcoholism, and the ramifications shape Frank’s life.

One indication of their severe poverty is how they lived. Eleven families must share one foul-smelling bathroom, which is closest to the McCourt’s apartment. They also suffer from typical poverty plagues: flies, rats, fleas, and lice. The sights, smells, and signs of poverty and neglect permeate the story just as they permeated Frank’s life. These conditions, combined with malnutrition and diseases associated with deprivation, were responsible for the deaths of at least two of Frank’s younger siblings.

Poverty also keeps Frank from the educational and other opportunities he deserved, opportunities which he was imminently qualified for but was denied purely because he was a pauper dressed in rags. Each McCourt has one set of clothes and one pair of shoes, constantly in need of repair (which they do with bicycle tires). He and his brother were constantly humiliated by this visible poverty.

Hunger is both literal and figurative presence in this story and in Frank’s life. The family is literally hungry all the time, and what they do eat is meager and unsatisfying. Even eggs are a luxury for them. While other poor families are at least able to do something special for Christmas dinner, the best the McCourts can manage is some old potatoes and a boiled pig’s head. Despite that, Frank’s mother (Angela) was always willing to share with others. Frank writes:

You never know when you might come home and find Mam sitting by the fire chatting with a woman and a child, strangers. Always a woman and child. Mam finds them wandering the streets and if they ask, Could you spare a few pennies, miss? her heart breaks. She never has money so she invites them home for tea and a bit of fried bread and if it's a bad night she'll let them sleep by the fire on a pile of rags in the corner. The bread she gives them always means less for us and if we complain she says there are always people worse off and we can surely spare a little from what we have.

Frank would rather starve or steal (and he does both) than beg, though his mother is reduced to begging at one point. “There’s nothing worse in the world,” he muses, “than to owe and be beholden to anyone.”

Because of this kind of desperate poverty, Frank connects feeling full with being successful. Just as he craves food, he yearns for a life that will allow him to eat what he wants until he feels full. Even more, he feels the need to provide food in order to feel successful. This is what drives him and eventually motivates him to go back to America. 

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