“Living the Miserable Irish Catholic Childhood”

“Living the Miserable Irish Catholic Childhood”

“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 Catholic childhood.”(Pg 12) As one can see the first page of the memoir is about how miserable Frank McCourt’s childhood happened to be. However some might think that Frank enduring tremendous poverty, loss and suffering led to his life becoming uplifting and triumphant. Throughout the novel, one travels with Frank McCourt from New York to Ireland back to America to show the reader that despite his loss and suffering he succeed in returning to America and writing a truly uplifting memoir of a real life.
As McCourt uses his humor in the beginning of the novel he jokes that a happy childhood “is hardly worth your while.”(Pg 12) In spite of the hardship he endured Frank recalls the occasional happiness of his childhood in New York, playing with the boys ...