Frank McCourt

When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than any ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood (11).

What saves McCourt's childhood from complete misery, and what saves the book from being oppressive itself, is represented in the line "the happy childhood is hardly worth your while." The Irish spirit, the down-to-earth sense of humor, the plucky refusal to stay down are the elements of the main character which symbolize that people's essential love of life, despite oppressive cultural forces. This study will specifically examine the role of religion in that culture, its oppressive nature from the perspective of Frank as a boy, and his and his people's complex and contradictory relationship with their God and their religion.

Essentially, that relationship can be called one of both acceptance and resistance, both respect and ridicule. On the first page of the book, McCourt refers to the misery imposed upon

. . .
of self-appointed representatives of the Church: That knee-trembler put Angela in an interesting condition and, of course, there was talk. Angela had cousins, the MacNamara sisters, Delia and Philomena, married, . . . large women, great-breasted and fierce. When they sailed along the sidewalks of Brooklyn lesser creatures stepped aside, respect was shown. The sisters knew what was right and they knew what was wrong and any doubts could be resolved by the One, Holy, Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church. They knew that Angela, unmarried, had no right to be in an interesting condition and they would take steps (15). McCourt does not express any real bitterness or even a sense of judgment against these sisters or other self-righteous Irish Catholics in his life or in the book. He merely observes them as characters in life, a part of what it means to be an Irish and a Catholic in the Ireland of that era. The MacNamara sisters are simply shown to be parts of the oppressive cultural machinery bearing down on Frank from the beginning of his life. If anything, they offer him an opportunity to develop himself as an individual in resistance to their judgments. It is no coincidence that young McCourt maintains his resistance to Irish C
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1705
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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