Angela's Ashes Analysis

Within Frank McCourt’s memoir Angela’s Ashes, he writes of his tragic childhood that was surrounded in death, abandonment, and a poverty-stricken existence that entailed starvation, lack of clothes and adequate shelter, and a perpetual state of freezing consequently. Despite his familial struggles, McCourt maintained a neutral tone with slight commentary on unfathomable events. His chronological structure goes to emphasize his experience with consistently appalling realities from where he spent his early years in New York to Ireland, only to free himself by catching his break in his return to the United States. McCourt stylistically depicts his tale of the harsh, unimaginable survival with a neutral tone, yet descriptions to state otherwise, a chronological structure from early childhood to young adult, and switching from elevated diction to simplified diction for this narrative to act as a universal language for all to comprehend. Furthermore, McCourt’s neutral tone also acts somewhat as ironic, as his descriptive language can be used to say what is unnecessary for him to reiterate due to the gravity of the images he constructs. For instance, upon Christmastime his family was struggling to receive any amount of their father’s wages from his inconsistent employment, …show more content…
The elevated diction displays his intelligence- purposeful or not- that is incredibly unbelievable considering his memoir. However, he also made use of simplified diction, which at some point in his life was his only vocabulary. An example of such wording is, “You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace,” which reaches out to an audience that grew up similarly to him without much at all. McCourt uses his vocabulary as a prime example that anyone can transform and rise above the ashes to become educated and capable individuals, like McCourt who became a literary phenomenon following his