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Description edit
"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive 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... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Summary edit
The story of Frank McCourts life is amazing. You live the experience of living the poorest lifestyle which I could never have imagined. Frank's spirit is wonderful and will keep you smiling, through all that is against him.
Characters/People edit
- 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. McCourt’s memoir therefore maintains a voice and perspective rich with the enthusiasm, tenderness, and determination of a young man.
- Angela McCourt: Frank’s “Mam” is humorous and loving, not overbearing or self-pitying, despite her difficult life. 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. Despite the painful thwarting of her own hopes, Angela always considers her children and their welfare above all else.
- Malachy McCourt (Sr.): Malachy is an alcoholic who spends his wages and dole money on drink while his children starve. McCourt’s treatment of his father remains masterfully evenhanded. He reveals not only the despair inflicted on the family by Malachy’s drinking, but also the obvious love between Malachy and his sons.
- Malachy McCourt (Jr): Frank's brother
- Michael McCourt: Frank’s second youngest brother, born in Limerick, whom Frank believes was left by an angel on the seventh step of their house.
- Oliver: Frank's brother, Eugine's twin
- Alphie McCourt: Frank’s youngest brother.
- Eugene: Frank's brother, twin of Oliver
- Margaret: Frank's younger sister
- 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.”
- Aunt Aggie: Angela’s sister and Frank’s miserly aunt. Aunt Aggie initially resents the McCourt children. Although she never ceases to be rude and unpleasant, she proves her loyalty to the family by helping them through tough times.
- Mrs. Leibowitz: Neighbor in New York City
- Cuchulain: Irish folk hero who Frank associates closely with as a child.
- Mr. Mccaffrey: Frank’s boss at Easons, Ltd., a company that imports and distributes Protestant newspapers from Northern Ireland.
- Seamus: The hospital janitor who helps Frank and Patricia communicate, and who later recites poetry to Frank in the eye hospital.
- Peter Dooley: Frank’s hunchbacked friend who wants to work for the BBC as a radio newsreader.
- 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.
- Mr. Timoney: An old eccentric to whom Frank reads Jonathan Swift’s satirical essay “A Modest Proposal.” Mr. Timoney becomes a close friend of Frank’s, in part because he respects Frank and treats him like an adult.
- Pa Keating: Frank’s warm and caring uncle. Pa Keating bolsters Frank’s confidence and encourages him to follow his own instincts in adulthood.
- 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.
- Frankie: Frankie is the narrator of this story. He is four when the story begins. He has an American accent, which the Irish hold against him. He is very responsible, but has a quick temper against classmates who bully him.
- Maam: Frankie's mother.
- Mr. McCourt: He is an alchoholic who finds lots of reasons for not putting his family first. He wears a suit and tie to every job interview, because common clothes are beneath him. He won't beg, nor carry anything but a child and a framed picture of Jeus.
- Bett: Add a description of this character.
- Geld
- Gasse
- Wasser
- Frau
- Tante Aggie
- Meine Mutter
- Zimmer
- Feuer
- Sohn
- Mr. Hannon
- Tisch
- Bruder
- Paddy
- Milch
- Lehrer
- Vincent De Paul
- Engel
- Pfund
- Vater
- Dann
- Hause
- Sie
- Fenster
- Mund
- Norden
- Mrs. Hannon
- Paddy Clohessy
- Mikey
- Fintan
- Bridey
- Freddie
- Mary
- Minnie
- Kathleen O'connell
- Philomena
- Theresa
- Mr. Kane
- Delia
- Mr. O'dea
- Rita
- Kevin Barry
- Mr. O'halloran
- Roddy Mccorley
- Quigley
- Bill Galvin
Quotes edit
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“Stock your mind. Stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it....You mind is your house and if you fill it with rubbish from the cinemas, it will rot in your head. You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is your palace.”
Frank's headmaster in school -
“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. . . . 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.”
Frank’s arrival in America at the conclusion of Angela’s Ashes is presented as a dream sequence. -
“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?”
This quotation comes from Chapter VIII. -
“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.”
This quotation comes from Chapter IV. -
“Mam turns toward 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 . . . 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.”
In Chapter IX, Frank observes his mother’s growing despondency as another week passes without the arrival of a paycheck from England. -
“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. . . . 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.”
This passage introduces McCourt’s memoir. -
“What is it you don't see our lord doing boys? Hanging on the cross sporting shoes sir!”
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“A mother's love's a blessing. No matter where you roam. Keep her while she's living. You'll miss her when she's gone.”
Angela Sheehan MCCourt (lyrics to a song) -
“It's lovely to know the world can't interfere with the inside of your head.”
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
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It’s lovely to know the world can’t interfere with the inside of your head.
Highlighted by 64 Kindle customers -
I think my father is like the Holy Trinity with three people in him, the one in the morning with the paper, the one at night with the stories and the prayers, and then the one who does the bad thing and comes home with the smell of whiskey and wants us to die for Ireland.
Highlighted by 48 Kindle customers -
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.
Highlighted by 46 Kindle customers -
You have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind about history and everything else but you can’t make up an empty mind. Stock your mind, stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it. If you won the Irish Sweepstakes and bought a house that needed furniture would you fill it with bits and pieces of rubbish? Your mind is your house and if you fill it with rubbish from the cinemas it will rot in your head. You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.
Highlighted by 42 Kindle customers -
Love her as in childhood Though feeble, old and grey. For you’ll never miss a mother’s love Till she’s buried beneath the clay.
Highlighted by 39 Kindle customers -
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.
Highlighted by 37 Kindle customers -
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.
Highlighted by 36 Kindle customers -
When Dad brings home the first week’s wages Mam is delighted she can pay the lovely Italian man in the grocery shop and she can hold her head up again because there’s nothing worse in the world than to owe and be beholden to anyone.
Highlighted by 29 Kindle customers -
And the child was named Angela for the Angelus which rang the midnight hour, the New Year, the minute of her coming and because she was a little angel anyway.
Highlighted by 24 Kindle customers -
When you have your father to yourself by the fire in the morning you don’t need Cuchulain or the Angel on the Seventh Step or anything.
Highlighted by 19 Kindle customers
Setting & Locations edit
The book is set in the 1930's and 1940's. It mostly takes place in Limerick, a city in the Mid-West region of Ireland.
- Limerick: The town in Ireland where most of the book takes place.
- New York: At the beginning of the book, the family lives in New York for a while before moving back to Ireland.
- Amerika
- Dublin
- Lohn
- Dock Road
- Irland
- Essen
- England
- Italien
- Indien
- Null Komma
- Brooklyn
- Assisi
- Lyric Cinema
- Coventry
- London
- Karamelbonbon
- Lexikon
- Franziskus
- Oma
- Hochform
- Leamy
- Beichtstuhl
- Wembley Hall
- Belfast
- Ballinacurra
- Arizona
- Irishtown
- Gegenwart
First Sentence edit
My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born.
Table of Contents edit
There are 19 unnamed chapters.
Themes & Symbolism edit
- Hunger: Frank is plagued by hunger throughout his childhood. The McCourts never have enough food to eat, and the food they do manage to procure is scant and unsatisfying. Hunger is mentioned over and over again until it becomes a haunting presence in the narrative. Frank’s father often drinks away the money the family needs for food, and comes home wailing about the plight of Ireland and the Irish. Frank’s mother realizes the pettiness of patriotism compared to the very real hunger her children suffer on a daily basis. When her husband sings songs about “suffering Ireland,” she responds, “Ireland can kiss <my> arse.” Frank then observes, “<F>ood on the table is what she wants, not suffering Ireland.”Food assumes a symbolic as well as a practical value in the memoir. Frank starts to associate feeling satiated with feeling like an independent and successful member of society. Frank’s need for food is thus more than physical: he craves the self-esteem and freedom that come with being able to eat what he wants. Frank is unwilling to appear needy or to appeal to other people’s charitable instincts to satisfy his hunger. In fact, he would rather steal than beg to survive. Once, when Malachy brings home a week’s pay, Frank notices how his mother can again hold her head up in the grocery and pay the man behind the counter. “There’s nothing worse in the world,” he muses, “than to owe and be beholden to anyone.” Here once more we see how the ability to pay for one’s food brings dignity and self-respect.
- The Limitations Imposed by Class: Because of social snobbery, Frank is unfairly denied many opportunities. Although he 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 shun him. Frank’s natural fighting instincts and the encouragement of a few family members help him to oppose and overcome the limits set by his low-class status.Even small victories, such as beating a team of wealthy boys in a soccer game, help to bolster Frank’s 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, despite his lower-class upbringing. Some might view Frank’s vision of America a classless society as idealistic, since class consciousness pervades American society as well. Even so, McCourt’s success as a teacher, performer, and world-renowned author stands as a testament to his ability to surmount the impediments of class, and to the society that made his idealistic dream a reality beyond his—or anyone’s—greatest expectations.
- 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 his guilt results primarily from his Catholicism. In the days of Frank’s childhood, priests tirelessly cautioned against the evils of masturbation and sex—their admonishments haunt Frank’s thoughts. As he matures, Frank learns to use Confession to relieve himself of guilt, and he stops feeling doomed by his natural sexual impulses.
- Anti-English Sentiment: In the opening lines of his memoir, McCourt ascribes some of the sorrow he endured as a child to “the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years.” Most of the adult characters in the memoir condemn past English invasions of Ireland and contemporary English repression of the Irish. Frank is brought up assuming that the English are essentially immoral and evil. He is taught from the start that Ireland thrived before the English came and spoiled their way of life. Once, when his father is outside trying to beat the fleas out of a mattress, a passerby watches and says that there were no fleas in “ancient Ireland”—the English brought them over to drive the Irish “out of our wits entirely.” “I wouldn’t put it past the English,” he adds. A revealing turn occurs when Frank hears Mr. O’Halloran say that the Irish, as well as the English, committed atrocities in battle. From this point on, Frank starts to question the assumption that Irishmen versus Englishmen means good versus evil.
- Stories, Songs, and Folktales: As a young child, Frank loves listening to his father’s boundless repertoire of stories and folktales. Often Malachy returns from the bar drunk and gregarious, telling stories of the lives of great Irish heroes, or of neighbors who live down the lane. Song has a important place in Irish culture, and bits and pieces of rhymes from old tunes pervade Angela’s Ashes. Most of the songs tell of better days gone by and express regret at joy remembered in times of grave suffering. Lines like “Oh, for one of those hours of gladness, gone, alas, like our youth too soon” resound throughout the memoir. Frank later finds comfort in hearing Shakespeare, P. D. Wodehouse, and songs and poems read aloud by his friends and family.
- Eggs: Unlike other families, the McCourts cannot afford to buy eggs regularly. Eggs are a familiar yet unattainable luxury, and Frank associates them with wealth and security. They become symbols of the good life that Frank wishes to provide for himself and his family. Eggs symbolize the financial security, the satisfaction, and the indulgences available beyond the boundaries of Limerick.
- The River Shannon: The symbolism of the River Shannon changes as Frank’s outlook matures during his childhood and adolescence. Initially, the river symbolizes Limerick’s bleakness and the brooding desolation of Frank’s childhood. Frank associates the river with the endless rain that torments Limerick, which he describes as a virulent 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, movement, 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.
- Ashes: Angela’s Ashes takes its name from the ashes which fall from Angela’s cigarettes and those in the fireplace at which she stares blankly. The entire setting of the narrative feels draped in ash—dark, decrepit, weak, lifeless, sunless. Angela’s ashes represent her crumbling hopes: her dreams of raising a healthy family with a supportive husband have withered and collapsed, leaving her with only cigarettes for comfort and the smoldering ashes of a fire for warmth.
Series & Lists edit
This is book 78 of 26 in Top selling 100 books 1998-2010 (Guardian). (authoritative list)
Preceded by The Return of the Naked Chef, and followed by Schott's Original Miscellany.
This is book 56 of 94 in Whitcoulls Top 100 (2011). (authoritative list)
Preceded by River God, and followed by Jessica.
This is book 156 of 195 in Shelfari Most Popular (December 2011). (authoritative list)
Preceded by Persuasion, and followed by Siddhartha.
This is book 151 of 195 in Shelfari Most Popular (June 2011). (authoritative list)
Preceded by Lolita, and followed by The Golden Compass.
This book is in Book Lover's Cook Book, The. (authoritative list)
This is book 135 of 195 in Shelfari Most Popular (June 2010). (authoritative list)
Preceded by Eleven Minutes, and followed by Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
This is book 147 of 194 in Shelfari Most Popular (December 2010). (authoritative list)
Preceded by Pride and Prejudice (A SmartPass Audio Study Guide), and followed by Siddhartha.
Authors & Contributors edit
- Frank McCourt (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Scribner
Country: United States
Publication Date: 1996
ISBN: 0684874350
Page Count: 460
Publisher: Scribner
Country: United States
Publication Date: 1996
ISBN: 0684874350
Page Count: 460
Awards edit
- Los Angeles Times Book Prize (1996: Biography)
- National Book Critics Circle Award (1996: Biography/Autobiography)
- Pulitzer Prize (1997: Biography, Winner)
- Exclusive Books Boeke Prize (1997)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: E184.I6 M117
- Dewey: 941.945
Subjects edit
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Movie Connections edit
- Angela's Ashes (IMDb): 1999
More Books Like This edit
Books with Additional Background Information edit
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