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Brief Summary Of The Book Angela's Ashes

Decent Essays

1) Angela’s Ashes
2) The novel takes place in Brooklyn, New York and Limerick, Ireland during the late 1930s and 1940s.
3) The novel opens with Frank’s mother, Angela, and father, Malachy, meeting in Brooklyn, New York and being forced to get married out of wedlock. His parents later have his younger brother Malachy and twin brothers Eugene and Oliver. Their father struggles with alcoholism, and spends all of his wages on alcohol until Frank’s sister is born. But his sister Margaret dies and the family decides to move back to Ireland. When they arrive, their father returns to his constant drunken stupor and the family struggles financially. Soon after their arrival the twins pass and Angela has a miscarriage. They spend much of their time …show more content…

Franks father, Malachy, was from the North of Ireland, which always prevented him from getting jobs aside from his alcoholism. Others see the intellectual potential Frank has to thrive, but because of his outer appearance he is shunned. When his father wanted him to become an altar boy, they were turned away because of their poverty. The second time he was turned away was when Frank was told he had could succeed in school, but was turned away by the secondary institution because of his looks. His mother even starts to see that her own children’s opportunities are being limited by their poverty, which cannot be helped. “That's the second time a door was slammed in your face by the Church…Stephen Carey told you and your father you couldn't be an altar boy and closed the door in your face… Brother Murray slams the door in your face… You are never to let anybody slam the door in your face again. Do you hear me?” (McCourt 289-290).Throughout the novel it is obvious that a lack of money and Malachy Sr.’s reputation are root to many of their problems. Although Frank was faced with many childhood adversities because of his family’s class, his story and travels to America prove that overcoming imposed limitations is in fact

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