Poverty In Angela's Ashes

When faced with extreme poverty and hunger, people adapt and develop new traits to survive. Whether it be drinking to escape reality or stealing food, destitute living conditions force kids to mature and develop unorthodox solutions to the struggles they face. In Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, young Frank does not understand the concept of death. It is not until his sister dies that he is exposed to it, and from then on death is an overlaying presence in his life. Despite this, it is not until several years later that he is old enough to comprehend the totality of dying and what it truly means. As Frank grows up, his perspective on death changes as he gains more exposure to it and reaches the capacity to understand. He displays this increased …show more content…
Frank does anything to escape from poverty, whether or not it carries the risk of death. When faced with the atrocity of living with his Aunt Aggie who treats Frank and his brothers poorly, McCourt writes, “I want to get away from her and I can think of only one way, to make myself sick and go to the hospital… I stand out in the open in the freezing weather and hope I’ll catch pneumonia or the galloping consumption so that I’ll go to the hospital with the nice clean sheets and meals in the bed…” (247). His focus is not on the risk of death, but rather on a small period of potential mortal comfort. This shows that his view of death, while understandably influenced by poverty, is shortsighted. Frank has assuredly matured since the beginning of the memoir, but he is still somewhat naive toward death. This is reflected in McCourt’s writing as a combination of short, fragmented sentences with little detail, and run-on sentences that come across as rolling streams of thought. This style mimics the speech of a young person. As explained in the preface by Jeannette Walls, “The voice changes as Frank gets older… But throughout, the voice remains a boy’s voice, the vocabulary for the most part simple, even while the psychology is richly layered, capturing the contradictions and paradoxes of his childhood” (5). Through the way this section is written, Frank’s misery and struggle …show more content…
He still sees it as a consequence of existence, especially in his impoverished surroundings where death is a constant, but he begins to associate the feeling of guilt with dying. When Theresa Carmody dies, McCourt feels partly responsible. He fears that their intimacy has caused her to go to Hell, and this notion weighs on him constantly. He writes, “I want to tell them how I’m the one who sent Theresa to hell… I can’t understand the feelings going through me but I know that with all the people who died in my family and all the people who died in the lanes around me and all the people who left I never had a pain like this in my heart and I hope I never will again” (325). While Frank still does not have a comprehension of death equivalent to that of an adult, his perspective becomes layered with more emotional nuances such as guilt. It is shown in the structure of this passage that the cycle of death around Frank has been seemingly endless. This still displays his childlike view, because even at fourteen years old he still does not realize the enormity of a death. He does not know how to process his grief or what to call it. The writing is frantic, relaying Frank’s feelings of hopelessness and confusion in the construction of the work, as he begins to understand the pain that comes with losing a loved one. As the book progresses, McCourt’s views of death develop with his understanding of the world.