Prejudice In Angela's Ashes

Words: 745
Pages: 3

The trials begin in New York where Frank’s mother gets pregnant and marries the Irish drunk. Lousy childhoods seem to encroach many of us, but as Frank McCourt sates; “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”, makes all else seem irrelevant (McCourt 1). Frank McCourt recounts his oppressive childhood and adolescence in his memoir, Angela’s Ashes. His mother, Angela struggles to feed her growing family with their non-existent income mostly due to Frank’s father, Malachy, and his alcoholism. At the ends of their whims, they go …show more content…
In Angela’s Ashes, Frank and his brothers are mocked, ridiculed, and discriminated by schoolmates for the clothes they wear and the dirt on their faces. Even though other families were in similar situations, the humiliation was ever present; at home, church, school, and about the city. The McCourt’s were not given the chance to prove their worth- Malachy was not given multiple jobs just because of his accent and Frank was not allowed to be an altar-boy at the church because of his dirty appearance. Frank’s disadvantages molded him with the rearing of Angela who told Frank to never “let anybody slam the door in your face again” (McCourt 186). Throughout his childhood, Frank’s low-class status equated to low expectations: which made him indignant, yet he still remained lively, passionate, and resolved. It is the bane hunger that never allowed Frank to be content, which translated this physical need to an emotional hunger for approval, success, and respect. The demarcations created by society not only impeded the McCourt’s lives, but forced death on nearly every family