What is family? Is it strangers that live under one roof? People who betray one another? Family is a group of people, most commonly tight-knit, that should always be there for support and back up regardless of the situation. Community, unlike close and extended family, enabled the McCourt family to survive through donations of money and support.
Webster defines community as a unified body of individual. In Angelas Ashes that definition truly shines through. In the opening page of the memoir Angelas Ashes, Frank McCourt expresses the thought, When I look back at my childhood I wonder how I survived at all(11). Through various forms of donations, the community that Frank McCourt and his family lived with enabled them to survive. Time was something big that was donated to the struggling Irish family. While the community did whatever they could with the time they had, extended and close family did the polar opposite. Though the story takes place-for the most part- in a different country, Ireland, families are most commonly all the same. They are there for each other no matter the when, where, or why of the situation. Frankie McCourts grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, and cousins did little to nothing in contributing in any situation, let alone one where their help was probably needed the most.
If there was one thing that Malachy and Angela McCourt could put on the top of the list of what they needed help with, it would be money. Malachy had trouble keeping a job. While in Ireland, the community aided him with dole money. While it wasnt as much as he would make with a job, it was what got his family through the constant tough times. The Saint Vincent de Paul Society as well helped the family by the constant dockets the McCourt family was receiving. When they moved to the lane they needed furniture. The community gave it to them. When one of the children fell ill the Saint Vincent de Paul Society gave them the ticket they would need to go see the doctor that the less fortunate went to. Did it matter to the McCourt family what doctor they saw, as long as they saw one? The answer is no, it did not.
When times were at the toughest McCourt writes, Its bad when Grandma wont talk to us because we cant run to her when we need to borrow sugar or tea or milk. Theres no use going to Aunt Aggie. Shell only bite your head off. Go home, shell say, and tell your father to get off is northern arse and get a job like the decent men of Limerick (133). The McCourts extended family never had it in them to donate money or food. Money was tough for almost everyone in Ireland around the time period that Frankie writes about. Jobs were scarce and exceedingly hard to come by. Angelas mother-Frankies grandmother-would not even let the family stay with her when they returned from America. She claimed there was no room and she could not afford to feed them. Is family not important enough to struggle with? She only wanted to protect herself and her assets. McCourts Aunt Aggie is much the same way. She at first only lived across the hall from the family, but could hardly be bothered to spare a piece of bread to help feed her nearly starved nephews. It was disgraceful. The community also offered up support for almost every situation.
A factor that everyone found themselves wanting in Ireland during that harsh time period, probably the most crucial of aspects, was simply the support of others. The friends of the family helped the McCourts whenever able too. While in a conversation with a local butcher discussing a pig head that the Saint Vincent de Paul society donated for the family Christmas dinner, Angela was asked if she was an expert on the pig. She replied with, I am not, but there was a Jewish woman, Mrs. Leibowitz, in New York, and I dont know what we would have done without her (F. McCourt 97). This quote reintegrates the whole concept of just how much the community helped them (the McCourts). The family does not receive any gratitude except for the required respect, nor do they do anything to earn it.
Support, money, and time were three of the most obvious factors that contrasted between being donated between the community and the extended and/or close family of Frankie McCourt. People in families in the lanes of Limerick have their ways of not talking to each other and it takes years of practice. (132-133). This comment made by Frankie McCourt is said in a highly nonchalant tone. It reiterates how family was not the main priority for many people. With no help from family and all the help he could handle, Frankie McCourt made it through his miserable childhood, and grew up to make something of himself. His family, however, nobody really knows what happened to them.
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