Frank Mccourt's Angelas Ashes

The ‘Not-So-Luck’ of the Irish
Angela’s Ashes describes the childhood and early adulthood of its author, Frank McCourt, as his family is forced to move from place to place in order to escape the burdens of their poverty. At the beginning of the novel, the author’s parents, both Irish-born, meet in Brooklyn, and are forced to marry as the author’s mother, Angela, becomes pregnant. During their time in the states, Frank’s family is stricken with poverty, as his father struggles to find work and, once he manages to find a job, spends all the money on drinking. Over the years, Angela gives birth to Malachy, Frank’s oldest brother, named after their father, twin boys, Oliver and Eugene, and a little girl, Margaret. Tragically, the girl dies from sickness, leaving her mother staying “in bed all day, hardly moving,” as a result of depression, and her father with his drinking (McCourt 36). Frank’s family decides, because of lack of hope for a financially stable future in Brooklyn, to return to Ireland, where they initially stay with

Satyarthi became interested and concerned with this issue early in his childhood, as he met a boy who was working instead of going to school. When he confronted his teachers about it, they “brushed the issue aside saying [the child workers] are just labourers,” which strongly resembles the condescension that Frank experiences by his surroundings throughout much of his childhood (Chopra 2). Today, Satyarthi argues that “child labour causes poverty,” and that “poverty is [not] the main cause behind child labour” (Chopra 7). Similarly, Frank was not forced to go earn money for his family directly from poverty, but from his father’s alcoholism that eliminated his family’s financial