Questions to know the answers to…
-Why did Angela and Malachy McCourt marry in New York?
-Why does Angela’s family initially view Frank’s father with suspicion?
-When Malachy comes home drunk, what does he tell his sons they must do?
-What image strikes Frank when he finds his father in the pub on the day of Eugene’s funeral
-How many families use the public lavatory outside the McCourts’ home in Roden Lane?
-Why does Frank’s Grandma fret that she has “God in me backyard”?
-Why does Angela think Frank is rejected from becoming an altar boy?
-What elements of his stay in the hospital does Frank enjoy?
-Why does Angela think that the women in her street have a “low-class” mentality?
-After which country do the McCourts nickname their second floor?
-Why does Frank find it difficult to condemn his father for his drinking?
-Why does Mr. Hannon have to retire from his job delivering coal?
-How does Frank spend his fourteenth birthday?
-What is Frank’s father’s first and only Christmas present to his family?
-Why are the McCourts evicted from their home in Roden Lane?
-Why does the protagonist leave Laman Griffin’s house to stay with Ab Sheehan?
-Why does Frank not take the post office exam?
-Why does Mr. McCaffrey tell Frank that he can only go up in life?
-What does a priest tell Frank after the protagonist confesses to hitting his mother and damning Theresa Carmody to hell?
-What is printed on the page that Frank is ordered to tear from all copies of the magazine John O’ London’s Weekly?
-What does Frank do with Mrs. Finucane’s ledger of debts after his employer dies?
-What does Frank observe on his last night in Limerick?
-To what does Frank compare his arrival in New York?
Quotations to understand…
1. 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 the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.
2. The master says it’s a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says it’s a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if there’s anyone in the world who would like us to live. My brothers are dead and my sister is dead and I wonder if they died for Ireland or the Faith. Dad says they were too young to die for anything. Mam says it was disease and starvation and him never having a job. Dad says, Och, Angela, puts on his cap and goes for a long walk.
3. I know when Dad does the bad thing. I know when he drinks the dole money and Mam is desperate and has to beg . . . but I don’t want to back away from him and run to Mam. How can I do that when I’m up with him early every morning with the whole world asleep?
4. Mam turns toward the dead ashes in the fire and sucks at the last bit of goodness in the Woodbine butt caught between the brown thumb and the burnt middle finger. Michael . . . wants to know if we’re having fish and chips tonight because he’s hungry. Mam says, Next week, love, and he goes back out to play in the lane.
5. I’m on deck the dawn we sail into New York. I’m sure I’m in a film, that it will end and lights will come up in the Lyric Cinema. . . . Rich Americans in top hats white ties and tails must be going home to bed with the gorgeous women with white teeth. The rest are going to work in warm comfortable offices and no one has a care in the world.