Summary

Writing in the present tense, young Frank McCourt recounts his troubles since his parents moved from New York City, where he was born, to Limerick, Ireland, his mother Angela's hometown. McCourt refers to his young life as the "worst childhood possible," made more miserable by the Catholic Church, an alcoholic father, an oppressed mother and the City of Limerick's incessant Atlantic rain, which spread dampness, mold, mildew and diseases such as bronchitis far and wide: "above all, we were wet" (11).

Frank tells us why they moved to America in the first place: his father, Malachy McCourt, grew up in Northern Ireland, became involved in the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and escaped to America as a fugitive after committing a crime. In America he met Angela Sheehan, Frank's mother, who had fled from Limerick after her father-who had dropped her brother Patrick on the head while drunk, inflicting brain damage-fled to Australia. Malachy and Angela marry hastily after an unplanned pregnancy, pressured by Angela's cousins Philomena and Delia, who look down upon Malachy because he is from Northern Ireland: "'Tis that sneaky little Presbyterian smile" (16). Malachy attempts to escape the marriage but drinks his fare money in the local pub. Frank, the first child, is followed by his brother Malachy; after another two years, the twins Eugene and Oliver join the McCourt clan.

Life in New York is difficult for the McCourts. Malachy's love of the New York pubs causes most of their troubles-he drinks his wages away, leaving his family to go hungry. The birth of Margaret, Angela and Malacy's first girl, temporarily quells Malachy's craving for drink, but Margaret dies soon after being born, sending Malachy into an alcoholic spiral and Angela into a deep depression. Mrs. Leibowitz and Minnie McAdorey, two of the McCourts' neighbors, call Angela's cousins about the problem; they in turn get Angela's mother in Limerick to send money for the young family to return to Ireland. As they leave New York Harbor, Frank watches Angela vomit over the side of the ship.

Back in Ireland the McCourts first go to County Antrim in the North of Ireland to visit Malachy's family. With the exception of Malachy's father, they are none too happy to meet Angela and the children. Malachy's father tells his son to apply to the IRA to request pension for his years in the service. They go to the IRA office in Dublin, where the man in charge denies Malachy's claim, stating that there is no record of his service. The McCourts spend the night on the police station floor, where, the next morning, the police take up a collection to buy them fare back to Limerick. Before they leave, Malachy shows Frank a statue of the defeated Irish hero, Cuchulain.

In Limerick, Angela's mother, though upset to see her daughter return to Limerick with a ne'er-do-well husband and four children, helps the family find a room on Windmill Street, near Angela's sister. Their first night there they share a mattress that, it turns out, is infested with bugs; they run outside scratching and screaming. Angela suffers a miscarriage and winds up in the hospital. The weekly dole of nineteen shillings is not enough for the family and Angela stands in line at the St. Vincent de Paul Society for charity with the City's other poor women. She meets Nora Molloy, who takes to Angela and sees that she isn't cheated at the grocery store. Afterwards, Frank overhears them complain about their husbands' feats of drinking in the pubs of Limerick.

Shortly after arriving in Limerick, the one-year-old Oliver is taken to the hospital. Frank, Malachy Jr. and the other twin Eugene stay with their Aunt Aggie and Uncle Pa Keating. The children find that baby Oliver has died and Frank throws stones at the jackdaws in the trees during the burial ceremony. Malachy drinks up the dole money.

The McCourts move to a room on Hartstonge Street and Frank and Malachy begin attending Leamy's National School, where their teachers dole out frequent corporal punishment. The other baby, Eugene, also dies six months after his twin brother. Angela spirals into depression and the doctor gives her pills for her nerves while Malachy gets drunk-indeed, he nearly misses the funeral because he's at a pub. Frank reckons that Eugene has been taken to heaven by an angel to visit his siblings, Oliver and Margaret.

Analysis

Frank McCourt was in his sixties at the time he wrote Angela's Ashes, yet he writes as though his narrator is five years old, for instance, "We're on the seesaw...up, down, up down" (20). The effect is often poignant, as the tragic events of his early life are channeled through the innocence of a child's perspective: "Malachy and I are back in the bed where Eugene died. I hope he's not cold in that white coffin in the graveyard though I know he's not there anymore because the angels come to the graveyard and open the coffin" (90). The Irish writer James Joyce also used this method of writing from a child's-eye-view in the opening of Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, another account of hardship in Ireland. McCourt thus links his own literary enterprise with that of his famous countryman. His is a story of particularly Irish misery and struggle.

This story, though often bleak, contains magical childhood moments as well, balancing horrors with humor and innocence. In a Brooklyn playground, he enjoys the wonders of a seesaw, he has breakfast with his father while his mother is in the hospital and loves when his father takes the time to tell him stories of Ireland's heroes, Cuchulain. This story is special because Malachy only shares it with Frank. His father also teaches him Irish songs to remind himself of his homeland and to educate Frank about Ireland. Angela McCourt also sings when she is happy, her favorite: "Anyone can see why I wanted your kiss" (23). And on Saturday nights when Malachy doesn't drink, Angela heats water on the stove for the children's baths and their father dries them.

However, when Malachy drinks, life becomes miserable for all of the McCourts. Malachy loses job after job and then drinks their dole money too. At one point Frank wishes he could float away up to the clouds so as not to hear his baby brothers crying from hunger. As for Angela, the tension for her is unbearable. With each new child the cost of Malachy's drinking increases; at one point, she attempts to collect the dole for her husband so he will not drink the money away. When Angela is depressed and unable to get out of bed, the children survive on food from their neighbors. Malachy does stop drinking after the death of his favorite child, Margaret, and the family is for once happy, suggesting that Malachy's alcoholism is the principal source of their misery. He soon returns to the drink, however, and thus restores desolation in his family.

McCourt never criticizes his father for his drunkenness. From his child's point-of-view, this is a normal part of daily life. However, McCourt provides metaphorical images of condemnation. For instance, the image of the glasses of black Guinness placed on the sparkling white baby's coffin suggests the root of the child's death: that his father's spending money on drink instead of food for his children. But over all Malachy's thirst is portrayed as beyond his control. He doesn't want to bring such suffering upon his family, but he is unable to help himself.

Once more McCourt contrasts his father's dark side with sweet instances of him singing and telling tales of heroes. Thus Malachy helps Frank to develop his imagination, heightening his love for words and stories and offering a means of escape from the horrors of his life. Cuchulain, who as a boy became a champion and protector of a king, grew up to be a sort of superhero with superhuman powers. He also listens to his neighbor Freddie Leibowitz's story of the Jews champion, Samson. These images of heroism help Frank to find strength in his own life, to resist the pressures of fate and fortune that seem to overwhelm his family.

All in all, the first chapters of Angela's Ashes set up an environment of intense personal and social pressures. The McCourts are scorned for being from Northern Ireland and for having lived in America; they suffer from their father's out-of-control alcohol addiction; they are robbed of three innocent babies. Yet the possibility of redemption remains even as life grows bleaker, in the form of songs, stories and acts of genuine charity.

Summary

Visions of the dead twins haunt Angela and she cannot stand to live on Harstonge Street any longer, so the family moves to a house on Roden Lane. The family feels good about the move until they realize that they must share the bathroom facilities with ten other families. When Angela asks whether the lavatory is ever cleaned her neighbors laugh at her innocence. Malachy attempts to hang a picture of Pope Leo XIII but injures himself because he used a jam jar instead of a hammer; blood pours unto the picture.

Malachy goes out every day and attempts to find work but is turned down because of his Northern Ireland accent. Even when he does find temporary employment he drinks his wages, reasoning that the family gets the dole money and he gets the work money. He comes staggering home at night singing songs about Ireland's heroes, "Roddy McCorley" or "Kevin Barry"; in his drunken state he lines the boys up and makes them promise to die for Ireland. Angela tells him to leave the children alone or "she'll brain him with the poker" (95).

Just before Christmas, Frank and his brother Malachy come home from school to find the first floor of the house under water; the McCourts are forced to flee to the warmth and dryness upstairs, which they call "Italy." Angela buys a pig's head for Christmas dinner and sends Frank to carry it home. His schoolmates, seeing the cheap fare, ridicule his family's poverty. After Christmas mass, Frank and his brother pick up coal refuse on the docks so that they can cook their meat. They run into Pa Keating, who gives them a bag of proper coal, which they lug home in the rain past the warmly lit homes of the well off. They have pig's head for Christmas dinner and happily eat their fill.

The McCourts suddenly have a new baby, Michael, whom Malachy says was left by an angel. The baby suffers from congestion and Malachy is forced to suck the mucus out of his child's nose. Meanwhile, Welfare workers come to their house and Angela asks for them for boots. Malachy despises her for begging and mends the boys' old boots with tire rubber. At school, both those with shoes and those without shun the McCourts and their teacher uses them as a lesson, saying that Jesus was poor and didn't have shoes on the cross. Meanwhile the water in their house recedes and the McCourts move down from "Italy" back to "Ireland," that is, the first floor.

Malachy finally gets a job at the Limerick Cement Factory and Angela cheerfully cleans the house. However, he fails to come home with his wages on Friday, instead getting drunk. Angela forces him to sleep downstairs in a chair. The following day Malachy is unable to go to work and loses his job.

Meanwhile, Frank receives religious instruction in preperation for his first communion. Mr. Benson, their instructor, resists the difficult questions that Frank and others, such as Brendan "Question" Quigley, ask about religious matters. Frank also makes friends with an eleven year-old, Mike Malloy or "Malloy the Fit," who knows about "dirty things." Malloy's mother Nora, whom Angela knows from the charity lines, is known for her mental breakdowns, which are likely intentional escapes from her husbands ludicrous drinking contests. Another of Frank's friends, Paddy Clohessy, who is even poorer than Frank, has no shoes and a shaved head to keep the lice away. He is thrilled when Frank gives him a single raison.

On the day of his communion, Frank is the center of his family's attention. He has trouble swallowing the communion wafer, which he later vomits, prompting his grandmother to send him to the church and ask how they should dispose of the vomited wafer. The priest tells them to wash it away with water and Grandma makes him return to ask the priest whether he should use holy water or tap water. Running back and forth to the church, Frank to misses his Collection, the time when all the youngsters traditionally collect money from friends and neighbors. He thus can't afford to go to the movies with his friends. Mikey, however, feigns a scene at the movie theater, allowing Frank to sneak in.

McCourt explores prejudice in Ireland, emphasizing its historical roots and irrational nature. He says that families are held personally responsible for the actions of their forebears-for instance, Irish people who converted to Protestantism in order to obtain food during the famine, who are known as "soupers," are still despised hundreds of years later. Frank's family suffers under this history of prejudice-his grandmother, unable to forgive him for vomiting the communion wafer, or his father for being from the north, refuses to speak with them. In contrast, Angela has a healthy communicative relationship with Bridey Hannon, to whom she confesses her continued love for Malachy. Meantime, the McCourts continue to scrap through life. Neighbors call on Malachy, who has fine handwriting and a good grasp of the English language, to write letters for them in return for sixpence. When he proudly refuses their payment they leave the money with Angela.

A border named Bill Galvin moves into Grandma's house. She learns that Galvin is a Protestant, which deeply offends her, and attempts to remove a Catholic statue in his room. He tells her that the statue reminds him of his Catholic wife and so she allows it to remain. Grandma also fixes Galvin's meals delivers them to the limekiln where he works. Frank secures the job of carrying Galvin's mid-day meal for sixpence a week. On the first day, however, the starving boy uncontrollably devours Galvin's meal. Galvin and Grandma are furious and Frank makes amends by working for two weeks without pay.

Angela and Malachy have their teeth pulled, which are rotted by constant smoking, and get false teeth. Young Malachy tries putting them in his mouth they get stuck and he must go to the hospital. While there the doctor notices that Frank is having difficulty breathing and is in need of a tonsillectomy.

Angela insists that Frank learn Irish dance against his wishes: "if my pals see my mother dragging me to an Irish dancing class, we will be disgraced entirely" (140). He doesn't like his first class and skips dance the following Saturday, instead using the money to go to the movies with his friend Billy Campbell. This continues every week and when he is asked to demonstrate his progress, he improvises the steps. After a note arrives from the dancing teacher, Malachy forces Frank to go to confession. His parents have further plans for Frank: his mother wants him to join the Arch Confraternity of the Redemptorist Church to impress the St. Vincent de Paul Society and Malachy wants Frank to be an altar boy. Frank painstakingly memorizes the Latin Mass and goes to church to apply, only to be rejected at sight. Angela blames class snobbery: "'Tis class distinction. They don't let boys from lanes on the alter" (149.

Analysis

Young, imaginative Frank is anxious to grow up so that he can better understand misery and confusion all around him. He confides in the Angel on the Seventh Step when he needs a sense of order. Yet he doesn't complain about his misfortune. Indeed, he doesn't even seem to know that he's unfortunate. Frank gleefully plays along with the fantasy that they are on holiday in "Italy" when in fact their house is flooded and he gladly eats pig's head for Christmas dinner. He doesn't compare his misfortune to the fortune of others, instead remaining optimistic and thriving in his own imagination, only looking forward to the day when he is older and all things make sense to him.

While Frank's childlike voice remains optimistic, however, the story plays against the irony of this optimism, criticizing the absurd selfishness of his father, Malachy. He refuses to allow his sons to wear charity boots, instead subjecting them to the ridicule of their tire-patches. He insists that they are undignified to haul coal and pig's heads through the streets, while meanwhile neglecting to provide the means that might raise his family above such indignities. And he attempts to appear dignified, in collar and tie, as he seeks work, only to undo his dignity with his late-night drunkenness. Moreover, Angela points out the absurdity of seeking workman's jobs while dressed in a tie, as though he is better than a workman. Malachy's tragic mixture of pride and failure correspond to his ambivalent portrayal in the book. Frank adores his father and never passes judgment on him, yet he allows Malachy's own actions to stand the readers' scrutiny. We forgive Frank for viewing his father charitably, but we are far less likely to forgive Malachy's hypocrisy.

McCourt juxtaposes the sacred and the profane throughout Angela's Ashes. Frank receives his first communion alongside his exposure to the "sins of the flesh": in one ear the youngster listens to the Angel on the Seventh Step, who prompts him to be good, and in the other he listens to the "devil," Mikey, who tells him naughty stories. In Catholic Ireland it is nearly impossible for Frank to gain any accurate information about human sexuality. The Church banned books dealing in any way with references to sexuality, including the works of Ireland's most famous writer, James Joyce. As a result, sexuality is shrouded in mystery and guilt. Frank's identity is split between the prude fables of babies coming from angels and Mikey's salacious tales. This tension continues as Frank matures. On the whole, Frank is an angelic child-clear in his donation of the raison to Paddy-who suffers because he cannot think of any sins to confess (and so confesses of listening to Mikey's story of a women urinating).

Just as McCourt never overtly criticizes his father, instead letting his actions judge him, so too he doesn't explicitly criticize the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, the Church, like Malachy, comes off as hypocritical. Though the purpose of first communion is an initiation into the mysteries of the Catholic faith, Frank's teachers resist the young students' questions about those very mysteries. Similarly, Frank's vomiting the Holy Communion, "the holiest thing in the world," suggests that the faith is, well, hard to swallow. This image is similar to the moment in Chapter 3 when Malachy injuries himself while hanging the picture of Pope Leo XIII. Perhaps the image captures Malachy's hypocritical position as a religious man who treats his family irreligiously; perhaps, on the other hand, it suggests that devotion to Irish Catholicism opens one up to self-injury.

As well as Catholicism, Irish history informs Frank's development. As a British colony for eight hundred years, Ireland has been largely defined by starvation. During the mid-nineteenth century famine, which decimated the population of Ireland through starvation and immigration when the potato crop failed, left an enormous scar on the Irish psyche. In McCourt's novel it seems as if the famine still continues-"soupers," who converted for food, are still widely hated. The boys dream of candy and lemonade and hunt for invisible raisins. Indeed, Frank's Grandmother is perhaps the least sympathetic character in the book simply because she refuses Frank sugar in his tea and punishes him for eating Galvin's meal, an uncontrollable response to starvation.

We also see evidence of Malachy's scholastic aptitude in this section. The neighbors come to him for help writing letters and he also has a good command of Latin, having memorized the entire mass. Later on in the book, Frank will write letters himself as a source of income. But this evidence of Malachy's ability only makes the his present life appear sadder. McCourt invites us to consider what Malachy could have been were it not for his alcoholism.

Summary

In fourth class, Frank encounters Mr. O'Neill, the geometry teacher who adores Euclid, and yet is kept from teaching geometry, which is the domain of fifth class. Every day Mr. O'Neill skins his apple in front of his hungry students and gives the peel to the best student. Fintan Slattery wins the peel one day for knowing who stood at the foot of the cross. The curly blonde haired Fintan is the perfect child, accompanying his mother to church daily and offering to pray for anyone who teases him. Everyone hates him. However, Fintan shares the peel with the other boys and this upsets them because they don't want to be friends with Fintan. Then Fintan invites Frank and Paddy Clohessy to his home after school, where Fintan's mother feeds them cheese sandwiches and milk. Paddy exclaims, "I never had a sangwidge in me life"(158). The boys love the food but become upset when Fintan accompanies them to the lavatory and watches them urinate. When Fintan asks them home again they go for the food and become angry when they aren't fed.

Ravenously hungry, Paddy and Frank play hooky and search for food. They steal apples and drink milk from a cow's udders until an angry farmer chases them away. Brendan Quigley informs Frank that his parents are looking for him with a truant officer so he hides out at Paddy's home, where the living conditions are even worse than at his. Stairs are missing from the staircase and the children can't get to the one lavatory on time from four flights up. Paddy's father lies in bed, dying of consumption and spitting mucous into a bucket. Angela and the school guard find Frank there the next day. She recognizes Paddy's mother and the women talk over old times. The Guard warns Frank: "don't be tormentin' your mother, boy" (166). Meanwhile Malachy continues to drink his dole money, unable to hold himself to just one pint, as Frank sadly looks on.

Mickey Spellacy's brothers and sisters die of consumption and Mickey gets a week off from school and money. However, one of his siblings dies during the summer when school is out, so Mickey has Frank and Billy Campbell pray with him that his next sibling will not die until school is in session. In return, Micky invites them to the wake, where they can eat their fill. However, when the Spellacy girl dies they are not invited to the wake. "But Mickey, you promised" (172), they say. Mickey dies of consumption the following year.

At Grandma's insistence, Frank helps Angela's brother Ab Sheehan, whom the family calls Uncle Pat, deliver newspapers, but the man is cruel to Frank and hardly pays him. He gets fish and chips at the Monument Café, but lets Frank go home hungry. One day, when Frank delivers a newspaper to Mr. Timoney, the old man asks Frank to read to him from The Limerick Leader and offers him a job reading to him. Frank begins reading such classics as "A Modest Proposal," the famous Irish writer Jonathan Swift's famous satire: "You'd wonder what he's laughing at when its all about cooking Irish babies" (177). With two jobs, Frank soon gets in trouble for missing the Confraternity meetings. Frank greatly enjoys Mr. Timoney's friendship but the old man, a Buddhist, begins to suffer from dementia and is forced to go to the City Nursing Home after laughing when his dog Macushla bites a priest, the milkman and a nun.

Once again, the McCourt family adds a new member, this time a boy who is named Alphonsus. Frank thinks this is a terrible name. Malachy's father sends a money order for five pounds for his new grandson Alphie. Frank and his brother Malachy, at Angela's insistence, accompany their father to cash it at the post office; he sends them home and heads for South's Pub. An angry Angela insists they find him: "I want you to stand in the middle of the pub and tell every man your father is drinking the money for the baby" (183). As they scour Limerick's pubs, Frank steals a drunken man's fish and chips from the floor of a pub. He later confesses this "sin" to the priest, who says he should not be giving out penances but washing the feet of his confessors instead.

Frank and Malachy finally find their father in a pub, singing a song about Antrim, his home county. Frank is furious but still has feelings of love and pity for his father. However, he realizes that he will feel differently towards his father, because a man that drinks away money meant for his baby son is truly unforgivable.

Analysis

Death is a familiar guest among the Irish poor, and McCourt's nonchalant tone as he writes about his dying friends and neighbors renders life in Limerick all the more grim. Young Mikey seems to take the death of his siblings in stride, as do his pals in school, who pray that Mikey's sister will wait to die until school starts so he can get a holiday. Frank himself has suffered similarly, having lived through the deaths of three siblings. Dennis Clohessy lies dying helplessly in the midst of his starving family. Malachy and the schoolteachers are always telling the children they must prepare to die for Ireland. The birth of Alfie is little consolation in the midst of this widespread death, as new lives are especially susceptible to such miseries.

Malnutrition is a major cause of early deaths in Ireland and, of course, the poorer families are most at risk. Angela's Ashes is a tale of survival, of Frank's struggle to get enough food to grow up. Frank goes after others' scraps like a dog: he yearns for his teachers' apple peel and digs for a raisin in a raisin bun; he tolerates Fintan for a cheese sandwich and steals fish and chips off a pub floor. And Paddy Clohessy is even worse off than Frank. He's ten years old and he's never had a sandwich. The whole novel rings with allusions to food. It is no accident that Mr. Timoney introduces Frank to the Irish eighteenth-century writer Jonathan Swift's satirical, "A Modest Proposal," which proposed a macabre solution to Ireland's hunger-eat the children.

Once again, Ireland's resentment and hatred for its neighboring colonizers is apparent in this section. The songs Malachy sings while drunk are warring words against the English. The children parrot the adults: the parents, neighbors and teachers who educate them daily. Simply, you can't be Irish if you don't hate England. Dennis Clohessy dies cursing the English. Irish children will grow up hating the English and many will not know why.

McCourt also continues his education, contrasting the petty academic squabbles of Mr. O'Neil and Mr. O'Dea with one of his true teachers, the worldly Mr. Timoney, who encourages Frank to think for himself. Mr. Timoney, married to a woman from India, is likely the only Buddhist in Limerick. McCourt suggests that between his non-conformity and the mischief of his dog, close-minded Limerick cannot tolerate Mr. Timoney and has him essentially incarcerated. Nonetheless, Mr. Timoney treats Frank like an adult, not like a mindless parrot, and thus qualifies as a formative teacher.

McCourt's ambiguous presentation of the Catholic Church continues. In earlier chapters he paints the Church in a dark light. Despite his desire to be an altar boy, the Church slams the door in his face because he looks poor. However, in this section Frank comes across a true priest who comforts him and blesses him when he feels guilt over stealing the drunken man's fish and chips.

A turning point occurs when Malachy drinks with money meant for his new baby's milk. Angela sends her son to the pub to disgrace their father while she waits at home with the baby. This signals that Frank is not only becoming older but that he will shortly become the man in the house. Also, a respectable woman would never enter a pub-a small room called a 'snug' was set aside for women in the pub-so she sets Frank up to confront his father. Frank continues to love Malachy. However, after a day spent looking for his father in the pubs of Limerick, as if he is the parent looking for an errant son, he is filled with rage and he sees for the first time the tragic immaturity of Malachy's behavior. He knows that from then on "it will be different" (185).

Summary

At the age of ten, Frank prepares for Confirmation, a sacrament that will make him "a true soldier of the Church" (187). Meanwhile, he and Mikey Molloy, now fourteen, accept an offer from Peter Dooley-who they call "Quasimodo," because he has a hunchback-to watch his sisters undress for a shilling. Mikey masturbates outside their window but then has one of his fits and falls to the ground. Peter's mother appears and locks him in the coal cellar, where he cries out about the rats getting at him. She tells Frank's mother, who sends him to Confession. Angela also forces Frank to swear before a picture of Pope Pius that he didn't see the naked girls.

After his Confirmation, Frank gets a nosebleed and is too sick to make the traditional Collection from neighbors and friends. Dr. Troy diagnoses him with typhoid fever and forces him into the Fever Hospital. His illness is very serious, bringing him attention, which he loves: the priest gives him Extreme Unction, the Confraternity boys pray for his recovery and his father kisses him for the first time. Frank also makes friends with the janitor Seamus and a fellow patient named Patricia Madigan, who is dying of diphtheria at fourteen. Patricia gives Frank a book that introduces him to Shakespeare, which affects him deeply. She also recites verses from the popular poem, "The Highwayman." The nurse doesn't like the two ill children speaking, however, and moves Frank to a ward by himself. There he learns that Patricia has died. Frank has Seamus ask his pub friends what happens at the end of "The Highwayman," and Seamus memorizes the last verses for Frank.

A month after he turns eleven, Frank is allowed to return home from the hospital. With a basis for comparison, he notices how shabby his home is after the white clean sheets, good food and sanitary conditions in the hospital. Because of his lengthy absence, Frank remains behind in fifth class. He is still feeble and supports himself on the walls when he walks; it takes him an hour to walk to the Church St. Francis, where he lights a candle to St. Francis and prays to be promoted. He writes an essay titled, "Jesus and the Weather," arguing that if Jesus had he been brought up in Limerick he'd be dead from consumption in a month, and it so impresses his teacher Mr. O'Dea that he moves Frank up to the sixth class. Frank returns to thank St. Francis. The new teacher Mr. O'Halloran, the principal, proves to be a godsend for Frank. A true teacher, he encourages questions and remains unbiased in presenting historical fact. In addition, Mr. O'Halloran organizes a raffle for the boys without shoes to get boots for the winter.

Despite Malachy's "bad thing," as Frank calls the behavior exhibited by Malachy when he drinks, Frank loves his father. Malachy tells his son how the English at one time closed the schools and denied the Irish an education. The Irish subverted their efforts by teaching in the ditches. His father also advises Frank to return to America where he will get a good job.

At the beginning of chapter nine, Angela says, "I'm worn out. That's the end of it. No more children" (216). This means no more sex and Malachy denounces her for neglecting "her wifely duties" (216). The second World War is underway and many men have gone off to England to work in munitions factories and send home their wages to their families. Malachy also leaves for England for work and the McCourts see him off at the train station. They look forward to the money he will send and begin to dream of food. In particular they are to have one egg each a week and finally get electricity. The money never arrives. Though desperate, Angela resists the available public assistance from the Dispensary because it is considered more shameful than the dole. Because she is incapable of supporting her children, she lives in fear of losing them.

Frank develops pink eye and his Grandma, who believes his constant reading is the cause, berates him. Frank, at this point hardly able to see, winds up in the hospital again where he meets his old friends the janitor Seamus and old Mr. Timoney. Seamus reads poetry to Frank until he too leaves to work in England and Mr.Timoney advises him to keep reading. After a month Frank returns home. Gossip spreads that Malachy has "gone mad" with drinking in England and Angela is forced to attempt to get assistance from the Dispensary. Once there, a sanctimonious official named Mr. Kane accuses her of claiming aid her family does not deserve because they have a father working in England. "He didn't send us a penny in months," Angela cries desperately, to which he cruelly suggests that perhaps Malachy has taken up with another woman (233). She eventually secures the assistance, but only after shaming her family.

Analysis

In the Roman Catholic Church, Confirmation is a sacrament performed by a bishop and received by children who are deemed old enough to reaffirm, or confirm, the decision made for them at Baptism to become part of the Church. Once more, McCourt presents sacred and profane side by side: as he prepares to be confirmed he simultaneously spies on naked girls. Later, Frank stands in front of a picture of Pope Pius swears that he did not see Mona Molloy naked. His very curiosity is a grave sin. This apparent distinction of sexuality and religion becomes ironic given that meanwhile Malachy tells Angela that she is not a good Catholic when she ends their sexual relationship. This confusing orientation toward sexuality instills more guilt in Frank than it does clarity.

Frank McCourt the teacher also emerges in this section, delivering a lecture on Irish history, especially the Irish famine (1845-1850) and the importance of Education. During this time, the potato provided much of the large Irish population with its primary source of nutrition while most of the grain, butter, cheese and meat were sent to England. When the potato crop failed due to a virulent blight, the rural Irish began to starve. More than a million Irish people starved to death while massive quantities of food were still exported to England. A half million faced eviction while one and a half million emigrated to England, America and Australia. McCourt uses Frank's child's voice to bring this terrible tragedy to light without seeming bitter and shrill. In addition, the English colonizers attempted to keep the Irish from any sort of education, closing schools all over Ireland. However, this action made the Irish cherish education more; they taught their children in the ditches or behind bushes. Time and time again McCourt demonstrates the importance of education.

We also see the beginning of Frank's literary life. Frank's reading helps him to escape his miserable life and to imagine a better one. Patricia Madigan, the girl who dies from consumption, introduces him to Shakespeare, thus setting him on the path that eventually, perhaps, resulted in his being a teacher. Through his reading he learns the history of his county, about poetry, about geography. However, some authority figures attempt to dissuade Frank from reading-after his first communion, a priest tells him reading is dangerous and his grandmother also chides him for reading. This dissuasion emphasizes the power of education-those who are comfortable with the status quo don't encourage reading, because it leads to examination of authority.

Also particularly poignant in this section is Frank's attempt to understand his father through his exposure to the Holy Trinity, which Roman Catholic dogma explains as three entities in one, an idea explained by Saint Patrick through the shamrock's three leaves. In his effort to come to terms with Malachy's behavior, Frank figures that his father is one person at breakfast, one at night when he tells stories and one when he does the "bad thing," that is, spends all the family's money on alcohol.

Summary

The McCourts are once more forced to move upstairs: 'It's cold and wet down in Ireland and we're moving upstairs to Italy (235). Soon Angela becomes ill with a severe fever. She wants lemonade to quench her thirst and Frank, now in charge of three boys, wonders what to do. He wanders the streets looking for food and is forced finally to steal two bottles of lemonade from outside South's pub and a loaf of bread from outside Kathleen O'Connell's shop. The children who wait in bed under overcoats tear into the bread and are so hungry they can't take the time to even cut it and Angela swallows down the lemonade in one gulp. Later, Frank relates his thieving to his siblings. His brother Michael refers to him as an outlaw and his brother Malachy compares him to Robin Hood. The following day, Frank steals milk, tomatoes, bread and a jar of marmalade from a box in front of one of the big houses on Barrington Street. The "motherless" family have food but they are cold without fuel for the fireplace and they are forced to beg door to door with the baby in a stroller on "the rich avenues and roads," but the maids treat them cruelly and finally they are forced to steal coal from people's backyards.

Soon Guard Dennehey arrives to investigate the boys' failure to go to school. He smiles and calls them "desperadoes" and tells Frank to tell Grandma and Aunt Aggie that Angela is sick. They send for the doctor who diagnoses pneumonia; she goes to the hospital to recuperate. The four boys wind up with Aunt Aggie who is verbally and physically abusive. Uncle Pa, Aggie's husband, treats them well, however, and feeds them contraband food.

Malachy shows up in Limerick to care for the children but returns to England the day after Angela returns home and things return to normal. Once again, Angela must face the public assistance men. To Frank's horror he sees one day a line waiting outside a church for left over food from the priest's supper and there "in her old gray coats is [his] mother" (250). Frank is filled with shame with a beggar for a mother.

The men at the public assistance office take sadistic pleasure in humiliating the poor. As he waits for an eye examination, Frank watches as these men tease a woman in pain, who must laugh with their insulting remarks or be denied a doctor. Once more Angela must suffer their taunts that she is not deserving of help because she married a man from the North.

In an old trunk, Frank discovers a red dress belonging to Angela from her New York days before she married Malachy McCourt. Inspired by the dress, he names his new football team "The Red Hearts of Limerick," and cuts out red hearts for the uniforms from the material. He also begins to examine some old papers in the trunk and comes across his parent's marriage certificate; thus he learns his parents were married for only six months when he was born. He believes this must be a miracle and that perhaps he is destined to become a saint.

Meanwhile Mikey Molloy has just turned sixteen and Frank accompanies him and his father Peter to the pub for Mickey's first pint, despite Nora Molloy's threats to bake bread. Frank asks Mikey about the six-month's pregnancy and Mikey explains that Frank is a "bastard" and tells him "you're doomed" (254). Mikey gives him a penny so he can light a candle for his endangered soul. Mikey soon moves to England when his father gives up drinking. One day, Frank's football team wins over a rich team and Frank sees this as a sign that his soul is not doomed after all.

Frank's next-door neighbor Mr. Hannon suffers from infected sores on his legs and Frank helps him with coal deliveries on his coal float. Feeling like "a real workingman," Frank loves spending time with Mr. Hannon, who advises him not to leave school, to continue to read books and to return to America. Frank's friends are jealous that he is doing a "man's work" (258). He loves being covered in coal dust. However, the coal dust soon begins to bother Frank's eyes, which have remained sensitive from the severe case of conjunctivitis. Angela will not let Frank continue despite Mr. Hannon's inability to work. Soon Hannon is hospitalized with gangrene. Mrs. Hannon tells Frank that Mr. Hannon, who had two daughters, looked upon Frank as a son, and Frank begins to cry.

Analysis

This section is primarily concerned with fatherhood. When Angela becomes sick, Frank takes over as the man of the house. All things considered, he does a good job. Without hesitation, he shoulders responsibility and manages to feed the children and ensure that his family is warm. Malachy makes a brief appearance, contrasting his immaturity with Frank's resolve. While the youngster has a poor excuse for a father in Malachy, he nevertheless manages to find positive role models around Limerick: Mr. Timony, for instance, and Pa Keating. Mikey Molloy's father Peter, the champion of pint drinkers, makes a drastic decision to stop drinking when he realizes that his sixteen year-old son might wind up a pub-crawler like himself. But perhaps Mr. Hannon, who encourages Frank to remain in school, is his strongest father figure yet.

But, Frank shoulders too much responsibility for his young age. He wants to be a man more than anything and cries when his eyes give him trouble and his mother forbids him to work because "this was my one chance to bring home the money the telegram boy never brought from my father" (265). However distraught Frank may be, it's clearly best that he is stopped from simply replacing his deadbeat father. The role-models in Frank's life are all cognizant that he is in danger of remaining at a dead-end job in Ireland forever, and echo the same advice for his future: "America."

McCourt also continues his critique of the Catholic Church. As Frank wanders the streets of Limerick looking for lemonade for his feverish mother and food for his starving brothers and himself he looks inside people's windows and sees the middle-class comfort of his Catholic neighbors. At first this doesn't seem like criticism, but in actuality it's a scathing condemnation of social conditions in Ireland and in the Catholic Church, who profess to Christian charity yet live alongside such starvation. In addition, Aunt Aggie hits little Malachy until there are "tears on his eyelashes" with the Catholic periodical the Little Messenger of the Sacred Heart (248). As we have seen before, McCourt balances this condemnation with praise of exceptional priests.

Summary

At Christmas, Malachy writes to say he is coming home, swears "he's a new man," and that he has changed forever" (268). Angela and Frank go the train to meet him near midnight. A man in a railway cap asks them to come in out of the cold and takes them to the switching room and gives them cocoa and sandwiches, his own supper. He has two sons himself, he says, fighting for Britain in the war. When Malachy is not on the train, Frank explodes with anger. Malachy arrives the following day with front two teeth missing and a gift for the family-a half-eaten box of chocolates. This year, the family has a sheep's head for dinner. Malachy leaves at the end of the meal.

Frank now becomes increasingly aware of his social status in the class-system of Great Britain and comes to view his own future as one of kowtowing to the more respectable class. Angela continues to be sick and spends much time at home in bed. Sometimes she brings poorer women home with her for a cup of tea and a slice of fried bread and young Michael similarly follows his mother's example by bringing home stray animals and poor old men. However, one such man brings in lice and they make a pact-no more strangers or animals.

Because the family cannot afford a radio, Frank is forced to sit outside a neighbor's window to listen to Shakespeare. Soon she invites him in, feeds him and they listen to the radio together. Frank especially loves American jazz, especially the songs of Billie Holiday, lead him to imagine America: "I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Baby" (275).

One day, in desperation, Angela who is four weeks late with the rent, is forced to knock down and burn one of the inside walls for warmth. She warns her sons not to go near the supporting beam. However, the cold weather forces them to cut into it and the roof begins to collapse around them. When the landlord's agent checks about fixing the roof, he sees the structural damage done to his property: "There were two rooms up there and now they're gone" (276). To Angela's great shame they are evicted; they sneak away in the night with their belongings around the baby in the pram. They move in with Angela's eccentric cousin, Laman Griffin. The children are delighted to be in a new place where they have their own lavatory. Laman has a cruel streak and insists that Angela clean his chamber pot). Laman also asks Frank, who is thirteen, to fetch him books from the library, a task that allows Frank to obtain reading material for himself as well. Grandma dies of pneumonia after catching a chill on the night the McCourts were evicted from Roden lane. Young Malachy leaves for Dublin to attend the Army School of Music, where he'll learn to play the trumpet and be a soldier.

In the library one day the Frank receives Butler's Lives of the Saints from Miss O' Riordan the librarian and finds the violence fascinating. He realizes that although he has recited the word "virgin" numerous times, he has no idea what it means, so he looks it up in the dictionary and begins to explore the English language in general. The librarian writes to Angela, remarking on Frank's apparent religious zeal.

Mr. O'Halloran also tells Angela that Frank has intellectual gifts and that he should continue his education and avoid "the messenger boy trap," that is, short-term employment that will rob him of a future. He recommends that Angela take Frank to the Christian Brothers to see if they can help with additional schooling. Brother Murray answers and "closes the door in our faces" (289). There is simply no room for such as the McCourts.

The supervisor at the post office gives Frank a job delivering telegrams. He is delighted. Mr. O'Halloran again tells Frank he should return to America at all costs and escape Ireland, where he will be forced into a menial job for the rest of his life. Frank is desperately anxious to finish school and one day when the White Fathers come to the school to recruit for the foreign missions, he applies to become a priest so he can be a chaplain in the Foreign Legion. He needs a physical examination to complete the application but the Doctor tells him he's only thirteen and to go home to his mother.

Frank constantly worries not only about his family's well-being but also about his sexual coming-of-age. The priests constantly lecture about the evils of masturbation and Frank is convinced he is going to hell and seeks out an older priest who cannot hear very well to listen to his confession. He also learns his mother is sleeping upstairs with Laman. Just before he is to leave on his outing, he forgets to empty the chamber pot and Leman becomes so angry he does not allow Frank to use the bicycle to go to Killaloe, as they had agreed. Frank accuses Laman of breaking his word. Laman strikes Frank on the shoulders and head and Frank escapes to his Uncle Pat's. There is no food in the house and Frank licks the newspaper in which his uncle's fish and chips were wrapped.

Analysis

Clearly, Frank's mother's Angela does not care much for the Catholic Church. In earlier sections, it is Malachy who accompanies Frank to mass, gives him guidance about confession, coaches him in Latin and takes him to the Redemptorist Church to apply to be an alter boy. When her son was refused, Angela attributed the rejection to the Irish class system. Here once more she reminds Frank that this is not the first time a door "was slammed in [his] face by the Church," and then she pleads with him never to let such a thing happen again.

Laman Griffin is another adult male who could be viewed as a father figure, especially in light of his sexual relationship with Angela. But, unlike other father figures Frank encounters, including his own alcoholic father, Laman is a cruel tyrant. McCourt presents the fact of their affair without editorializing, leaving us to sort it out ourselves. Perhaps Angela moves into Lyman's bed because he forces her to-he is after all in the position of power in his household, forcing the others to clean up after his filth. In this reading, Angela's decision might be read as a sacrifice for her children's sake. But perhaps, on the other hand, Angela is genuinely lonely for human contact and takes comfort in her relationship with Lyman. At any rate, the relationship is uncomfortably complicated both for Frank and the reader.

Summary

Frank, conscious that he is growing up, no longer calls Abbot Sheehan 'Uncle Pat,' instead calling him Ab. Frank looks forward to a future delivering telegrams and eating well. Angela sends his brother Michael with food and a note pleading that he return home: Frank sadly tells his younger brother, "I live here now and I'm never going back," and makes a plan to buy Michael some new clothes with the money he will soon be earning (297).

Frank continues to sin, masturbating guiltily and stealing food from well-to-do neighbors. He justifies his theft by believing that he is going to hell anyway because of his masturbation. In addition to reading the exploits of the Catholic Church's virgin martyrs, Frank finds a sex manual at the library and finally realizes the shocking truth of sexual intercourse. He resents his father's tall tales about the Angel on the Seventh Step. Miss O'Riordan the librarian finds him reading the sex material and orders him to leave. Frank walks to the People's Park where he falls asleep, has a sexually arousing dream and wakes to the people in the park observing him and pulling their children away.

Frank's fourteenth birthday finally arrives and he attempts to wash his clothes at his Uncle Ab's house for his first day of work. While he waits for his clothes to dry Frank puts on his dead grandmother's old woolen dress to keep warm. Aunt Aggie brings home the drunken Uncle Ab, who sees him wearing her mother's dress and laughs hysterically. Aggie makes Frank go outside to get water for tea where a neighbor sees him and also laughs.

Frank goes to the post office to start work, but the job doesn't begin until Monday. He is an object of ridicule in his ragged clothes. Aunt Aggie, who respects Frank for trying to support his family, takes him shopping for new clothes and gives him two shillings for his birthday: "I have to stand on the edge of the River Shannon so that the whole world won't see the tears of a man the day he's fourteen" (311).

On Monday Frank delivers his first telegram. He takes it to Paddy Clohessy's mother, who, though she still lives in the poorest section of town, now has new furniture and plenty of food. She explains that Paddy and his father Dennis, who was dying of tuberculosis, work in England and send money home. She says that if it wasn't for World War II she and her family would be dead. With his wages, Frank buys his brother Michael fish and chips and takes him to a movie and afterwards for tea and buns. However, Frank shortly realizes that the most important thing he can do with his wages is to save them so he can go to America. Frank soon learns that rich people with English accents don't tip, nor do the clergy. It's the poor that tip. Frank also cashes money orders for incapacitated people and brings them groceries although this is against the rules.

Soon Michael begins to live at Uncle Ab's house and eventually Angela winds up back there as well. Young Malachy returns from Dublin, reuniting the family. One rainy day, Frank delivers a telegram to the house of Teresa Carmody, who is suffering from consumption. She asks him to come in and encourages him to take his pants off and put them near the fire so they can dry. Then she makes love to him on the couch and Frank is filled simultaneously with dread that he will get consumption and joy at the wonder of the sexual act. Frank returns again and again despite her illness and the teenagers make love on the green couch. One day he delivers a telegram to Teresa's mother and learns that the girl is in the hospital; she dies soon after. Frank worries that Teresa's soul is in hell because they had sex. He hides behind a tree at her funeral, goes to four masses and begs for mercy on Teresa's soul.

Analysis

These two chapters are largely concerned Frank's sexual awakening. Sex is at once irresistible and horrifying to Frank, complicated further by his mother's sexual relationship with Laman Griffin. He hears them having sex upstairs as he falls asleep. However, McCourt does not condemn Angela for having extramarital sex; he merely objects to Laman Griffin. There is an undercurrent of male rivalry when Laman beats Frank. Angela finds herself torn between two "men," one of whom is her son, the other of whom provides for her family. Honest, hard-working Frank turns out to be the better of the two, allowing Angela to return at the end of the section.

Frank meanwhile is desperate for information about his physical and emotional changes. The library proves to be a good source of information, far better then the misinformation passed among pals, but when he finally gets the information he needs, he is made to feel filthy and sinful by another authority figure, the close-minded librarian. When he finally finds sexual fulfillment with Teresa Carmody, he is further raked through the mental hell of believing that he is responsible for condemning her soul to hell forever. Throughout, Catholic sexuality is linked to debilitating guilt and fear.

Restrictive authority figures like the librarian are consistently offset with positive role models like Mr. O'Halloran, who insists that although Ireland is finally free of England, it still maintains a social class system foisted on Ireland by England. O'Halloran paints a picture of an Irish class system that is corrupt. In his view, the state of education in Ireland allows only people with money a fulfilling future, leaving the have-nots to become menial workers, whatever their native talents. Through O'Halloran, Frank realizes that the only way to a good life is to return to America.

Summary

Frank delivers a telegram to Mr. Harrington, whose wife has just died. He has been drinking and wants company so he pours Frank a glass of sherry. Mr. Harrington leaves Frank in the bedroom with Mrs. Harrington's body while he fetches more alcohol. Guilt-striken over the state of Teresa Carmody's soul, Frank wonders whether he can make up for the soul he has damned by baptizing Mrs. Harrington's protestant body. He decides to use the sherry to baptize her. Mr. Harrington returns in the midst of the baptism, becomes drunkenly enraged and forces a ham sandwich down Frank's throat. Frank vomits and jumps out the window. Harrington reports him and Frank is fired but rehired when the priest writes a letter.

Next, Frank delivers another telegram to a moneylender, Mrs. Finucane, who offers Frank the job of writing letters to her debtors. Frank steals writing supplies from Woolworth's and relishes his new job. His choice of words intimidates the debtors-"I'm sure you don't want to languish in the dungeons of Limerick" (331)-and they pay their bills to Ms. Finucane's delight. She hordes money, saving up to buy masses for her soul to be said after she dies. Soon, Frank begins to help himself from her purse when she drinks too much in the evening. Angela complains that everyone is talking about his letters and Frank tells himself that he is only saving money for America.

Frank plans to take the examination to become a permanent worker at the post office. Pa Keating, however, tells him what a future in Limerick entails: "You'll be dead in your head before you are sixteen" (355). Frank decides against the examination and gets a new job delivering The Irish Times, a Protestant newspaper. Mrs. O'Connell at the post office is offended when Frank decides not to be a postal worker. She calls him "Mr. High and Mighty" (337), insinuating that Frank is too uppity for the post.

Analysis

Irish feelings of antagonism towards the British inform McCourt's prose throughout the novel. Just as he subtly castigates the Catholic Church, so too he illustrates English oppression with examples rather than sermons. For instance, the priests and the English both refuse a poor telegram boy a tip, revealing their petty disregard for manners and charity.

McCourt paints English oppression as a matter of Irish psychology, not just as history. For instance, Mr. Harrington, who was born and bred in Limerick, has internalized the English account of Irish inferiority. He considers himself English because he is protestant and feigns an English accent, and he brutalizes Frank, insisting that all Irish people are ghoulish, starving alcoholics, responsible for killing his wife with "their" consumption. Frank wants lemonade to drink and turns down Harrington's offer of food, but Harrington forces alcohol and a sandwich him, thereby mirroring the way that he forces his assumptions on the poor boy. Frank, however, vomits up the English man's food and drink, just as he vomited up the first communion wafer. Moreover, Frank vomits on Harrington's roses, which are a symbol of England. Both Catholicism and English oppression, McCourt suggests, are hard for the Irish to swallow.

This theme of internalized oppression continues in the figure of Mrs. O'Connell at the post office. Mrs. O'Connell is wholly and solely impressed by authority. First she fires Frank at the request of Harrington, whom she calls a "lovely Englishman." Then she reinstates Frank at the request of a higher authority, a priest. Her compliment to Frank when she reinstates him-"You struck a blow, McCourt" (329)-rings hollow given her eagerness to please Mr. Harrington just a few pages earlier. Mrs. O'Connell is at the mercy of the two oppressive forces in Irish life: the English and the Church. She has no life or mind of her own, instead leaning on authority. This, indeed, is the existence that Frank hopes to escape in America.

Summary

The night before his sixteenth birthday, Frank goes to South's pub for his traditional first pint. Since his father is unavailable, Pa Keating accompanies him. The men in the pub "lift their pints" to Frank, and as they discuss the Second World War, Frank gets drunk. After leaving the pub, he feels melancholy and decides he must go to confession before he turns sixteen. However, he is sent away from the rectory because he's drunk. At home, Frank argues with Angela, who prays that he won't end up a drunkard like his father. He tells her he knows she's been sleeping with Laman and slaps her when she tells him to watch his tongue. He feels horrible because now he has another sin to contend with but rationalizes his behavior, believing that it's Angela's fault.

The following day, the confused boy goes to the Franciscan Church. Father Gregory notices him crying and in a flood of emotion Frank tells him everything that's on his mind. The priest assures him that God has forgiven him and that now he must forgive himself. The priest also assures him that Teresa is in heaven.

Frank beings work for Easons, delivering The Irish Times. Although forbidden by the Church and his boss to read the Protestant paper, Frank reads it voraciously nevertheless. He spends most of one day running around town tearing out an article on contraception-a topic banned by the Irish government. One of the delivery boys, Eamon, tells Frank that he should the torn out copies of the article on the streets of Limerick. He thus earns nine pounds, eight of which he puts in to his America savings account for America, and buys food for his family.

Angela gets work caring for the wealthy Mr. Sliney, a friend of Mr. Timoney's. When Frank visits his mother at Sliney's, he realizes she likes her new job in the airy big house. Frank continues working at Easons, riding the bike through, reading at every spare moment and dreaming of America. His brother Malachy gets a job in Coventry at the gas works shoveling coal. He too wants to return to America.

Frank delivers papers for three years while also writing letters for Mrs. Finucane. On the day before he is to turn nineteen, she dies, and Frank robs her of seventeen pounds he finds in her purse and of another forty pounds from her upstairs trunk. He takes a bottle of sherry and flings her ledger into the River Shannon. Thus he frees all the indebted people of Limerick, including Aunt Aggie.

He is free to flee to America. His mother cries and Frank walks the streets of Limerick pensively. The family gives Frank a going away party and soon he finds himself aboard the Irish Oak, sailing out of Cork. On the sea, he regrets leaving until a priest from Limerick, on his way home to Los Angeles, comforts him.

The sight of New York Harbor seems like movie; the ship continues to Albany to dock. On the way, it stops in Poughkeepsie, where the ship's officers and the priest are invited to a party. The priest invites Frank as his guest and soon Frank finds himself surrounded by gorgeous, eager American women. He winds up having sex with a woman named Frieda, to the priest's consternation. Back on the ship, the wireless officer says to him, "This a great country altogether" (362).

Frank responds to the wireless officer, "'Tis," in the final one-word chapter.

Analysis

Immigration has played a major role in the history of Ireland. For a small country with a large population, immigration was the only way many Irish could earn a living and support their families. And, while the Irish have scattered all over the world, America was widely considered the land of opportunity. Despite many obstacles, Frank McCourt chooses America as a means to escape poverty and to achieve success.

The last section of his memoir demonstrates the effect of emigration on the Irish family. Earlier, Malachy Sr. goes to England to work and send home money to his starving family. However, he disappears as many others did and remained as a permanent immigrant in England. (He will turn up again in McCourt's follow-up book, 'Tis). Malachy Jr. also leaves Ireland for England in the manner of his father but keeps in touch with his family, and, because England is so close to Ireland, returns home occasionally.

Frank's journey, however, is much more serious than his brothers. His family gives him "an American wake" before he departs, because they never expect to see "the departing one again in this life" (356). In many emigrating families, an older sibling led the way to America and there earned the money to send for the next sibling, and so forth. In chapter seventeen, after Frank announces his departure, Angela weeps and Michael asks, "Will we all go someday?" Frank answers, "We will" (354). And at the end of chapter seventeen, we see the McCourts waiting to follow in Frank's steps. Malachy Jr. has a job in Coventry, "waiting for the day he can go to America after me" (353).

Frank's task of raising money for America is as arduous a journey as the voyage itself. He literally begs, borrows and steals the money, saving every spare penny to make his dream a reality. The idea of remaining in Limerick horrifies him, though it aches his heart to leave. And, although he is tempted to spoil himself with food and movies, he foregoes these luxuries to accomplish his goal-America.

Upon his approach, Frank sees the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and the Empire State Building and "the sun turns everything to gold" (359), recalling the old cliché that America is the land where "the streets are paved with gold." And in addition to leaving Ireland, Frank also casts aside his overwhelming guilt associated with his sexuality. At the party in Chapter 18, he thoroughly enjoys a sexual encounter while the priest knocks on the door outside: "Father would you ever take a running jump for yourself?" (361). This question seems directed at the repressive nature of his past, which, at least at this stage in young McCourt's life, he has finally left behind him.

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• Summary and Analysis of Chapters XII-XIII
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters XIV-XV
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters XVI-XVII
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters XVIII-XIX
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