Angela’s_Ashes

Angela’s Ashes Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt is a memoir of the childhood of the author himself, brought up in the 1930’s depression in poverty-stricken New York and Limerick. Right from the beginning of the novel one sees the way in which the McCourt family are faced with a lack of money due to Frank’s alcoholic father. He drinks all his earnings in the pubs and loses any job he gets, which continues throughout the novel; because of this the family are tormented by extreme poverty and desperation. The two main factors of alcoholism and poverty mean the family must deal with the deaths of three of Frank’s siblings. Despite all this suffering, the courageous family survives and with Frank achieving his goal to return to America this truly harrowing story is a display of courage: facing fears, terrible conditions and embarrassments, and survival: moving on and living through the hardships and suffering, against the apparently overwhelming odds. The problems start in America, New York when Frank’s Alcoholic Father Malachy starts a trend of buying only alcohol with his wages and coming home drunk… “He does not bring home the wages… It’s late and Dad rolls up the stairs singing Roddy McCorley.”(24-5) The malachy, family, poverty, must, money, angela, new, coal, because, mccourts, limerick, frank, food, drinking, york, wages, novel, live, home, america, work, two, surviving, one, oliver, job, ireland, gets, frank’s, death, conditions, cold, children, alcoholism, without, whole