Frank McCourt "angelas Ashes"

Bednarz-Caraballo Sylwia

Essay 6 - “This is life…”

Reading “Angela’s Ashes” was very emotional. One would not believe how people lived in Ireland some years ago. And I’m sure that wasn’t the only place in the world where people were struggling like that. Frank Mc Court, the oldest child who tried to take care of his brothers the best way he knew, tells the story. He didn’t have an easy life. This poor child tried to do anything for him and his siblings to survive.

Looking at people I know and comparing their life to Mc Court’s lives, well I think that most of them wouldn’t even know what to do, how to do it, to survive. My main point: how is it that some people have everything they need to live and others have nothing and still find a way to make things work, not on a high level, but still. How is it possible that Frank McCourt and his brothers survived? In my eyes they went through a lot. How anyone would be able to do it now? I can’t see that happening. I don’t know if I could. Although, I’m sure that there are people living this way.

The McCourt family moved from New York to Ireland to look for a better way of living, to forget about their dead children, to try to have a regular life. Well, it didn’t work out. The father of the family was to caught up with drinking, instead of giving the money for the needs of the family, which would be just simple - food. When the father left to England to look for a job and never sent any money to his starving family Frank felt obligated to look after everyone. His sick mother spent all time in bed, not showing any interest in her kids. Only when she was well, she would go to the dispensary to beg for money for food or cloths for the kids. That was a really difficult time for the children. Living on bread and tea was their daily routine and they were lucky if they even had that much. Frank the oldest of the McCourt’s kids was trying to find a way to feed his hungry brothers Malachy, Michael and Alphie and the sick mother. I can’t even imagine what those kids had to experience. That was just too sad and too devastating. Even the mother’s family wasn’t wiling to help them. Blaming their father for everything that happened to the family, just because he was from the North.

How cruel the life