Alphie McCourt Frank's Youngest Brother example essay topic

Context Angela's Ashes: A Memoir is Frank McCourt's acclaimed memoir. It charts the author's childhood from his infant years in Brooklyn, through his impoverished adolescence in Limerick, Ireland, to his return to America at the age of nineteen. First published in 1996, McCourt's memoir won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize in the category of best Biography / Autobiography, and has gone on to become a worldwide bestseller. McCourt, who for many years taught writing in a New York public high school, waited for over forty years to write about his troubled youth.

Arguably, waiting for years before writing his autobiography allowed Frank McCourt to talk about his childhood in the most objective way possible. McCourt treats the subject of his own difficult life with even-handedness and objectivity. McCourt never downplays the fact that he suffered from acute hunger and deprivation in his youth. He once described this autobiography as 'an epic of woe.

' Nothing about the author's boyhood was easy. But Frank's world is not one of self-pity. Although the protagonist endures a troubled upbringing, it is one that instills in him strong moral values and a healthy sense of humor. McCourt's prose style is ambitious in its scope, yet detailed in his focus; it is prosaic in order to capture everyday life, but poetic in order to evoke a homeland.

McCourt wrote a sequel to Angela's Ashes entitled 'Tis, which describes his experiences as a young man in America. A film version of Angela's Ashes was made in 1999. 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. The family grows, and Angela struggles to feed her growing family of sons while Malachy spends his wages on drink.

Frank's much-loved baby sister Margaret dies, and Angela becomes depressed. The McCourts decide to return to Ireland. In Ireland, more troubles plague the McCourts. Angela has a miscarriage, Frank's two younger brothers die, and Malachy constantly drinks away the dole money. McCourt's childhood is characterized not only as a time of great deprivation, but as a time of good humor and adventure. 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 great Irish heroes and the people who live in their lane. Over the course of a few years, Angela gives birth to two sons, Michael and Alphonsus, or 'Alphie' for short. As Frank grows older, the narration increasingly focuses on his exploits at school. When Frank turns ten, he is Confirmed.

Right after his Confirmation, he 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 Frank 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, 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 adulthood he gets from working, and dreams of saving enough to provide his family with food and clothes. The McCourts are evicted from their lodgings, and must move in with Angela's cousin, Laman. Angela begins sleeping with Laman, an arrangement which makes Frank increasingly uncomfortable and angry.

He also begins to feel guilty about his own sexual feelings. Because of the priests' mandates against it, Frank feels 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. Frank is devastated. Frank saves enough money to get to New York.

On his first night there, he attends a party and sleeps with an American woman. Although Frank is sad to leave Ireland and his family, he has great plans for the future. Character List Frank McCourt - The book's author, narrator, and protagonist. As the teller of his own life story, McCourt writes from the perspective of an adolescent looking out onto the world rather than as an adult looking back on his childhood. Frank thus retains the enthusiasm, tenderness, and determination of a young man. Click here for In-Depth Analysis.

Angela McCourt - Frank's 'Mam' is not overbearing or complaining, despite her hard life, but humorous and loving. As Angela deals with her husband's alcoholism, the deaths of three of her children, and the necessity of begging for handouts from aid agencies, her expectations disintegrate. However, despite the painful thwarting of her own hopes, Angela thinks not of herself and her plight, but of her children and their welfare. Malachy McCourt - Malachy is an alcoholic who spends his wages and dole money on drink while his children starve. However, McCourt's treatment of his father remains masterfully even-handed. Readers are shown not only the despair inflicted on the family by Malachy's drinking, but the obvious love between Malachy and his sons.

Malachy McCourt - Frank's younger brother by one year. Malachy is named after his father. Malachy is more physically attractive than the protagonist, and manages to charm his way into the hearts of cantankerous people. Oliver and Eugene McCourt - Frank's younger twin brothers. They die within several months of one another, shortly after the McCourts arrive in Limerick.

The deaths of these boys devastates Angela, who is already suffering over the loss of her baby girl Margaret. Michael McCourt - Frank's second youngest brother, born in Limerick, whom the protagonist believes was left by an angel on the seventh step of their house. Alphie McCourt - Frank's youngest brother. Aunt Aggie - Angela's sister and Frank's miserly aunt. Aunt Aggie initially resents the McCourt children, and although she never ceases to be rude and unpleasant, she proves her loyalty to the family by helping them through tough times. Pa Keating - Frank's warm and caring uncle.

Pa Keating bolsters Frank's confidence, and encourages the protagonist to follow his own instincts in adulthood. Ab Sheehan - Angela's brother and Frank's uncle. Uncle Ab was dropped on his head as a child, which damaged his brain. Frank moves in with Ab when he fights with his mother and Laman Griffin.

Grandma - Grandma helps the McCourts whenever she can, although she remains suspicious of Malachy Sr.'s northern Irish roots and insists that Frank has inherited his father's 'odd manner. ' Laman Griffin - Angela's cousin and lover for a short time. Frank has a fight with Laman that causes Frank to move in with his Uncle Ab. The MacNamara sisters - Angela's cousins who live in New York.

The MacNamara sisters are bossy, burly women who keep their husbands in check and interfere in everyone else's business. Mr. Timoney - An old eccentric to whom Frank reads Jonathan Swift's satirical essay 'A Modest Proposal. ' Mr. Timoney becomes a close friend of the protagonist's, in part because he respects Frank and treats him like an adult. Theresa Carmody - A seventeen-year-old consumptive girl with whom Frank has a sexual relationship. Frank desperately worries about the fate of Theresa's immortal soul, which he thinks he is jeopardizing by having premarital sex with her. The Hannon - Angela's neighbor in Roden Lane, and her favorite confidante.

Bridey gives her friend some much-needed support and empathy. Bridey's father is Mr. Hannon, whom Frank grows to love like a father after the old man gives him his first job delivering coal. Patricia Madigan - A young diphtheria patient whom Frank meets in the hospital while he is recovering from typhoid. Patricia reads poems to Frank, and jokes with him.

Seamus - The hospital janitor who helps Frank and Patricia communicate, and who later recites poetry to Frank in the eye hospital. Mrs. Brigid Finucane - The old women to whose debtors Frank writes threatening letters. Mr. McCaffrey - Frank's boss at Eason's, Ltd., a company that imports and distributes Protestant newspapers from Northern Ireland. The Molloy's - Mikey is Frank's cross-eyed school friend who has fits and is an expert on sex-related topics. Mikey's father Peter is famous as the champion pint drinker of Limerick, while his mother Nora is well known for her frequent visits to the insane asylum. Like Angela, Nora worries about how she will feed her family when her husband drinks away all his money.

Billy Campbell - Another friend of Frank's with whom the protagonist has adventures. Paddy Clohessy - A school friend of Frank's who lives in unbearable squalor as a child, but who eventually moves to England in order to earn more money for his family. Mr. O'Halloran - Frank's headmaster and teacher during his final year at school. 'Hoppy' encourages Frank to go to America and find good employment, rather than staying in a dead-end job in Ireland.

Peter Dooley - Frank's hunchbacked friend who wants to work for the BBC as a radio newsreader. Analysis of Major Characters Frank McCourt - McCourt writes his narrative in the present tense, from the perspective of a young boy. There is often a distance between Frank, the young boy who simply reports on events without forming opinions, and McCourt, who shows the reader the adult perspective on those events. Frank is lively and streetwise, thoughtful and sensitive. Although Frank is physically weak and prone to infection, he has emotional strength and a survivor mentality. He is also highly intelligent, works hard at school, and is a quick thinker.

As the narrative progresses, Frank strives to reach beyond the limitations forced upon him by poverty. He becomes determined to make a success of his life and to provide for his family. It is a relief to him to leave school at age fourteen in order to get a job and start providing for his family. Although he does not explicitly acknowledge it, Frank is burdened with the necessity of acting as a father figure for his family.

As Frank matures, he starts to suffer from an overwhelming sense of guilt. He worries that by sinning, he has doomed himself and the people he cares about. It seems that Frank channels the disappointments of his hard life into self- recrimination. Frank escapes his fears and guilt by reading, watching movies, listening to the radio, and daydreaming. He also thinks optimistically about the future, gradually focusing not just on what he wants to do for his family, but what he wants to achieve for himself. Frank reconciles himself to the fact that in order to reach America, he will have to take risks, pass up safe jobs, and do ethically dubious things such as writing threatening letters for Mrs. Finucane and delivering Protestant newspapers.

Angela McCourt - Despite constant poverty, a criminally irresponsible husband, and the death of three of her children, Angela is a humorous and loving mother. Angela must sacrifice her standards of dignity and class in order to provide for her children. Still, she never relaxes her standards of behavior for her sons, and she brings them up to be well-behaved, morally aware, kind, and hard-working men. Frank often reacts harshly to the measures Angela takes to help her family, condemning her for begging outside a church and later for sleeping with Laman Griffin.

Despite Frank's hostility to some of Angela's decisions, however, it is clear that Angela is simply struggling to cope under highly difficult circumstances. McCourt makes it clear that Angela's first priority is always her sons' welfare. Malachy McCourt (Sr.) - In some ways, Frank's father can be considered the antagonist of Angela's Ashes, because it is his actions that keep the McCourts destitute. While his family suffers from crippling hunger, and his children contract diseases caused by weakness and malnutrition, Malachy plies himself with drink and comes home roaring that his sons must be ready to die for Ireland. Frank's father drinks himself into a stupor partially to dull the pain of the deaths of his twin sons and baby daughter. But McCourt emphasizes that Malachy's drinking is more than just a means of coping with bereavement: it is an illness that constantly jeopardizes the survival of his family.

Nonetheless, despite the burdens that Malachy's alcoholism places on Frank's shoulders, Frank almost always remains loyal to his father. Frank treasures the times that he and Malachy sit chatting and drinking tea in front of the fire. And Frank loves his father's way with words, lively imagination, and flair for telling stories. When Malachy goes to work in England, he uses his physical distance to justify abandoning his family, leaving them without his emotional or monetary support. Whatever the reasons for his behavior, the ultimate truth about Frank's father is that he satisfies his need for alcohol instead of providing for his family. Themes, Symbols, and Motifs Themes 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 this self-recrimination stems in part from Catholicism, since in the days of Frank's childhood, priests tirelessly caution d against the evils of masturbation and sex. However, as Frank matures, he learns to use Confession to unburden himself of his guilt, and he stops feeling bad about his natural sexual impulses. Class distinction - Because of social snobbery, Frank is unfairly denied many opportunities. Although Frank 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 shut the door in his face.

Because of his own natural fighting instincts, and the encouragement of a few father figures, Frank does not let this elitism cow him. Even small victories, such as beating a team of wealthy boys in a soccer game, are important to him, because they bolster his self-esteem. As the memoir progresses, Frank grows determined to prove that he can succeed and earn people's respect. In particular, he looks to America as a classless society where his ambitions will be realized and his talents rewarded. Hunger - Frank is plagued by hunger throughout his childhood. The McCourts never have enough food to eat, let alone the kind that they would like.

Hunger is mentioned over and over again until it becomes a ceaseless drumbeat underneath the plot developments. Food assumes a symbolic as well as a practical value: Frank starts to associate feeling satiated with feeling like an independent and successful member of society. Frank's need is thus more than physical, for he craves the self-esteem and freedom that comes with being able to buy whatever you want. Frank is not willing to appear needy or have to appeal to other people's charitable instincts in order to satisfy his hunger. In fact, he would rather steal than beg in order to survive. Symbols River Shannon - The symbolism of the River Shannon changes as Frank's outlook changes during his childhood and adolescence.

Initially, it symbolizes Limerick's bleakness, and the desolation of the protagonist's childhood. Frank associates the river with the endless rain that torments Limerick, which he describes as a pestilential, 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 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. Egg - Unlike other families, the McCourts cannot afford to buy eggs regularly.

Still, eggs are a known, imaginable luxury, and Frank associates them with wealth and security. They become attributes of the good life that Frank wishes to provide for himself and his family. Eggs symbolize the financial security that Frank hopes to achieve. Motifs Anti-English sentiment - Most of the adult characters condemn past English invasions of Ireland, and contemporary English repression of the Irish.

Frank is brought up assuming that the English are essentially immoral. However, a revelatory moment occurs for the protagonist when he hears Mr. O'Halloran say that the Irish, as well as the English, committed atrocities in battle. From this point onwards, Frank starts to question the assumption that all Englishmen are evil and all Irishmen are good. Stories and folktales - As a young child, Frank loves listening to his father's stories of the lives of great Irish heroes, or neighbors who live down the street.

Frank later finds comfort in Shakespeare, P.D. Wodehouse, and songs and poems recited by his friends and family. I Summary 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. As the autobiography opens, Frank describes his parents meeting and marrying in New York and eventually moving back to Ireland with their four sons. He characterizes his as a typical 'miserable Irish Catholic childhood,' complete with drunken father and browbeaten mother. He tells of Limerick's interminable rain, which spread disease through the town.

Frank backtracks and tells the story of his mother and father's lives before the birth of their children. Malachy McCourt, Frank's father, grows up in the north of Ireland, fights for the Old IRA, and commits a crime (unnamed by the narrator) for which a price is placed on his head. Malachy escapes to America to avoid being killed. After indulging his drinking habit in the States and in England for many years, he returns to Belfast, where he drinks tea and waits to die. Angela Sheehan, Frank's mother, grows up in a Limerick slum. She is named after the Angelus (midnight bells rung to honor the New Year), because she was born as the bells rang.

Her father drops her baby brother on his head, and runs off to Australia. Ab Sheehan, Angela's brother, is never the same after being dropped, but Frank recalls that the whole of Limerick loved him. Angela later emigrates to America, where she meets Malachy, who had just served three months in jail for the theft of a truck carrying buttons. Angela becomes pregnant by Malachy, who is coerced into marrying Angela by her cousins, the McNamara sisters. He plots to escape the marriage by moving to California, but foils his own plot by spending his train fare at the pub.

The McNamara sisters mock Malachy for his strange ways and intimate that he has a 'streak of the Presbyterian' in him. Frank is born and baptized, and is joined a year later by another brother, Malachy. A couple of years later, Angela gives birth to boy twins, Eugene and Oliver. The rest of the chapter describes the difficulties and the joys of Frank's early childhood in New York. Frank remembers playing with Malachy in the park near their home, and listening to his father's patriotic songs and folk tales.

He recalls particularly liking one story about a great Irish warrior named Cuchulain, and jealously guarding this story as his own. Even though Frank's father loves his children, he constantly drinks, and loses jobs. Oftentimes, he spends his wages at the pub, and as a result Angela has no money to buy dinner for her children. Malachy stops drinking for a while once Angela has a beautiful daughter, Margaret, but by the end of the chapter Margaret has died. The death of her daughter drives Angela into a state of depression and causes her to neglect her children. Despite the best attempts of two of the McCourts' neighbors, Mrs. Leibowitz and Minnie McAdorey, the situation does not improve.

The women decide to inform Delia and Philo mena McNamara of their cousin's troubles. The McNamara sisters write to Angela's mother asking for money to pay for the McCourts' passage back to Ireland. The chapter ends with four year-old Frank watching as his mother vomits over the side of the ship, and the Statue of Liberty pulls away from him. Analysis The author's wry humor undercuts the bleakness of his early years, as he jokes that a happy childhood 'is hardly worth your while. ' In spite of the hardship he endured, Frank remembers the occasional happiness of his childhood in New York, playing with boys from the neighborhood and listening to his father's tales of Ireland. McCourt cuts into the stream of his narrative with snippets of folk songs and old Irish tales, so that Ireland seems eternally present in the world of New York.

The theme of telling tales, and the impact tales have on Frank, returns throughout the novel. The narrator comes to depend on these imaginative excursions to provide insulation from the cold realities of his life. Frank is fascinated by Freddie Leibowitz's tale of Samson, and is highly protective of his own, and all the neighboring children's', right to individual stories. For instance, he scolds his brother Malachy for singing a song that Frank thinks belongs to Maisie MacAdorey. Also, Frank's tale of Cuchulain unites him with his father. The narrator suggests that in a world where material possessions are scarce, ownership of songs and stories is crucial.

Malachy's alcoholism-referred to only half-jokingly as the 'Curse of the Irish'-runs through this chapter. Frank recalls only one period of respite from Malachy's incessant drinking: the few weeks following Margaret's birth. The happiness of the McCourt family around this time is poignant when contrasted with their subsequent depression over the baby's death. Angela, until this point a gritty, loving, and responsible mother, is made miserable by the death. Food brought by kind neighbors becomes a solace to Frank in his physical and emotional state of need. However, even as he relishes Mrs. Leibowitz's soup, the boy wishes that his baby sister could be there to enjoy it too.

Such details shape our reaction to Frank as much as they inform us of past events. The protagonist comes across as loving, intelligent, and deeply sensitive to the emotions of those around him. McCourt conveys his childhood impressions of his New York with sensitivity and humor, while remaining true to the language and the sentiments of a four year- old boy. For example, McCourt describes his twin brothers' diapers as 'shitty,' and includes all the silly jokes he can recall sharing with his brother Malachy. This results in a tone that is both knowing and na " ive.

Important Quotations Explained 1. 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. People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years.

Above all-we were wet. [Explanation] 2. The master says it's a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says it's a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if there's anyone in the world who would like us to live. My brothers are dead and my sister is dead and I wonder if they died for Ireland or the Faith. Dad says they were too young to die for anything. Mam says it was disease and starvation and him never having a job.

Dad says, Och, Angela, puts on his cap and goes for a long walk. [Explanation] 3. I know when Dad does the bad thing. I know when he drinks the dole money and Mam is desperate and has to beg... but I don't want to back away from him and run to Mam. How can I do that when I'm up with him early every morning with the whole world asleep? He lights the fire and makes the tea and sings to himself or reads the paper to me in a whisper that won't wake up the rest of the family.

[Explanation] 4. Mam turns towards the dead ashes in the fire and sucks at the last bit of goodness in the Woodbine butt caught between the brown thumb and the burnt middle finger. Michael who is only five but won't understand anything till he's eleven like me wants to know if we " re having fish and chips tonight because he's hungry. Mam says, Next week, love, and he goes back out to play in the lane.

[Explanation] 5. I'm on deck the dawn we sail into New York. I'm sure I'm in a film, that it will end and lights will come up in the Lyric Cinema... There are thousands of cars speeding along the roads and the sun turns everything to gold. Rich Americans in top hats white ties and tails must be going home to bed with the gorgeous women with white teeth. The rest are going to work in warm comfortable offices and no one has a care in the world.

[Explanation] Key Facts Full Title - Angela's Ashes: A Memoir Author - Frank McCourt Type of Work - Memoir Genre - Memoir: a type of autobiography in which the author records the interesting events, people and situations that he / she has encountered in life Language - English, with occasional use of Irish, English and American dialects Time and place written - New York, early 1990'state of First Publication - September 1996, Hardcover Publisher - Simon and Schuster Trade Narrator - Frank McCourt Climax - There are many climaxes within the novel, most of which surround the worst incidences of poverty, alcoholism, and death. However, there are also a series of optimistic climaxes, as Frank starts assuming adult responsibilities, and discovers his love for literature and poetry. An important moment of self- realization occurs at the end of the memoir, when a kind priest absolves Frank of all his sins, which allows the protagonist to leave for America with a clear conscience and reassert control over his future Protagonist - Frank McCourt Antagonist - Many characters are antagonistic to Frank, including schoolmasters, priests, family members, and people in positions of authority. Even Frank's father may be seen as an antagonist, since his alcoholism aggravates his family's poverty. However, Frank's true antagonist is not one individual, but the general discrimination he faces because of his poverty Setting (time) - Late 1930's and 1940'setting (place) - Brooklyn, New York (briefly) and Limerick, Ireland Point of View - First person Falling Action - Frank earns enough money to leave for America, and says an emotional farewell to Ireland Tense - Present tense or immediate past; the author writes as though he is experiencing events for the first time, in the present moment Foreshadowing - The death of baby Margaret seems to anticipate Frank's near-continual state of bereavement in Limerick, as he struggles to cope with the demise of two of his brothers, Theresa, and many other friends and relations Tone - Humorous, self-effacing, matter-of-fact. McCourt matches his tone to the age of the narrator, becoming more serious and worldly as the narrative progresses Themes - Guilt, class distinction, hunger Motifs - Anti-English sentiment, stories and folktales Symbols - River Shannon, eggs.