Angela's Ashes: A Memoir
Summary: Angela's Ashes is a memoir about Frank McCourt growing up in Ireland with a family that is cursed with multiple hardships like his father's alcoholism, constant hunger, disease, poor education and poverty. After the death of his first baby sister, his family takes a turn for the worst. Then, after losing more siblings to diseases caused by the poverty stricken area, constantly moving to poorer conditions throughout Ireland and oppositions from people in McCourt's life trying to keep him down, McCourt manages to escape Ireland and all the hardships there for the American dream in New York to rise up from poverty.
Hunger is the biggest symbol throughout the story for poverty because his family looks to food as the hope for escaping poverty, that once they have food on the table, they will be on the right track to a better life.
"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."
This promise for fish isn't one that would be fulfilled because McCourt knew that in order to have this meal, it would require the money and a promise for money from his alcoholic father was a hopeless one.
Political Connection: The hardships that are faced by McCourt's family is all a result of social class because the society he grew up in was dependent on the social hierarchy. Even when he proves his intelligence and ability to potentially lead his family in the right direction, social class brings him down, keeping him in poverty for a prolonged amount of time. Social class and poverty go hand-in-hand.
Hunger is the biggest symbol throughout the story for poverty because his family looks to food as the hope for escaping poverty, that once they have food on the table, they will be on the right track to a better life.
"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."
This promise for fish isn't one that would be fulfilled because McCourt knew that in order to have this meal, it would require the money and a promise for money from his alcoholic father was a hopeless one.
Political Connection: The hardships that are faced by McCourt's family is all a result of social class because the society he grew up in was dependent on the social hierarchy. Even when he proves his intelligence and ability to potentially lead his family in the right direction, social class brings him down, keeping him in poverty for a prolonged amount of time. Social class and poverty go hand-in-hand.