Angela’s Ashes: Motifs 3 key examples

Malachy Sr. calls his sons “the Red Branch Knights,” after a group of legendary warriors from Irish folklore. He also fills their lives with stories of real Irish heroes, from Eamon de Valera, one of the early leaders of Ireland’s independence movement, to Kevin Barry, a very young soldier famously and tragically killed by the British in the Irish War of Independence. The allusions to historical figures connect the McCourts’ present-day struggles to the sacrifices made by past and present Irish heroes. They also place Malachy Sr. and his family within a legacy of Irish resilience and rebellion against British rule. By calling his sons “the Red Branch Knights,” Malachy is reinforcing the idea that they, too, are part of a noble Irish lineage. This comparison elevates their lives above the poverty they face, making the McCourt boys feel strong and important and suggesting that they can find dignity in their identity as Irishmen.

However, this pride and sense of legacy are tempered by the fact that Malachy Sr. tends to invoke these figures only when he’s extremely drunk. He comes home “singing Kevin Barry” for much of Frank’s childhood and wakes his sons up in the middle of the night to make them promise they’ll “die for Ireland.” Stories of Irish heroism and his lifelong disappointment with Malachy Sr. are therefore always tied together in Frank’s mind. Although Irish history is grand and noble, some of those legends only surface for Frank when accompanied by his father’s most shameful behaviors.

The motif of dampness from the Shannon River appears frequently in the Limerick sections of Angela’s Ashes. It rains a lot in the West of Ireland, and Frank and his family are often wet and cold. Though it’s not actually the river itself that makes them “damp,” the Shannon represents the constant fear and hardship that hover over the family. Angela and Malachy Sr. continually refer to the damp as a cause for the endless sickness within the McCourt household. Despite the fact that they are too poor to afford food, medicine, or adequate shelter, they blame the river and rain for their children’s weakened health and frequent bouts of illness. The pervasive damp becomes, in their eyes, a malicious force that prevents their children from thriving and that eventually kills Eugene and Oliver. By attributing the family’s suffering to the river, Malachy Sr. externalizes the family’s misfortunes. Rather than shouldering the blame himself, he suggests that their troubles stem from external forces beyond their control.

Later in the novel, Frank gains a more nuanced view of the Shannon River. Rather than being a force that “kills,” he starts to see it as a way of potentially escaping his life in Limerick. In order to get back to America, Frank must follow the Shannon to the sea. Instead of trapping and killing him in Limerick, the river then becomes a source of hope.

In this instance Mikey is referring to the judgement the Catholic communities of Ireland placed on people like Frank's parents for having sex before marriage. Angela was pregnant before she and Malachy Sr. were married, which, in Mikey’s mind, means that there must be something fundamentally wrong with Frank. Sex outside of marriage places a person “not in a state of grace.” In moments like this Frank encounters the idea of sex as being both irresistibly appealing and totally abhorrent. The euphemism “the excitement"—which covers every sexual act from intercourse to masturbation— begins to signify this mingled curiosity and discomfort.

Frank often feels embarrassed or even ashamed when he hears or thinks about sex. Using a term as indirect as “the excitement” indicates the period's cultural and religious pressure to avoid openly discussing sexuality, especially around children. For Frank, “the excitement” carries an inherent shame. “Excitement” is forbidden or morally questionable, which is confirmed for Frank both when he begins to masturbate and has to confess it every week, and when he and Theresa Carmody have sex and he worries she’s going to hell.