Angela's Ashes Quotes

In the book Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, the character Angela McCourt is one of the most dependable and loyal mothers in all of literature. Even though Angela goes through many spells of depression throughout the memoir, her dedication to her family and her perseverance through adversity is what makes her a great mother and an extraordinary person. Throughout the memoir Angela faces many challenges, which include her husband, who spends all of their very little money on alcohol and eventually abandons the family. This left Angela as the sole provider. Additionally, the death of her daughter Margaret and her twin sons Oliver and Eugene drove Angela into a state of depression. Angela also struggles financially, her now small family is so poor that she has to beg or find other humiliating ways to scrape together enough

Mam says, Next week, love, and he goes back out to play in the lane” (McCourt 224). This quote shows us that Angela’s family is very poor, and can’t even afford to buy dinner every night. Now you might be thinking, “Does the memoir prove that Angela was a great mother because her child, Frank, moved out of Ireland, went to New York University, taught in six New York schools, won a Pulitzer Prize for Biography/Autobiography, won an National Book Critics Circle Award, had a movie inspired by Angela’s Ashes, and died with a net worth of $1.2 billion?” If you ever asked me that question, I would reply, “yes.” Without Angela, who knows if Frank McCourt would have even lived to become successful, let alone grow up and be instilled with beliefs of freedom and determination from his mother. Now, some might say that Angela wasn’t that great of a mother, I mean, she did teach her children to be beggars at a very young age, because they observed her humiliating herself in many ways while trying to scrape together some money, even after she gained a career. But what else could she