A Record of “Miserable Irish Childhood” in Frank McCourt’s Autobiographical Dilogy Cover Image

Zapis „żałosnego, irlandzkiego dzieciństwa” w dylogii autobiograficznej Franka McCourta
A Record of “Miserable Irish Childhood” in Frank McCourt’s Autobiographical Dilogy

Author(s): Magdalena Krzyżanowska
Subject(s): Psychology, Studies of Literature, Educational Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Health and medicine and law, Family and social welfare, Theory of Literature, Socio-Economic Research, American Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: Frank McCourt; memoir; childhood; trauma; poverty

Summary/Abstract: The article aims to analyse and interpret the topic of poverty in the memories of Frank McCourt (Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis). Using sociological literature by, i.a, Ruth Lister and Zygmunt Bauman, the study presents the biography of the protagonist and his mother, marked by the phenomenon of inherited poverty. Drawing attention to the problem of irony and intertextuality in the literary works, the author argues that language is insufficient to express the experience of poverty and to be individualised from its system. The author of the article puts forward the thesis that the Irish writer’s dilogy is only seemingly of a confessional and personal nature, being more a story about the universal fate of an Irishman, a person affected by the problem of poverty.

  • Issue Year: 5/2022
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 1-17
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: Polish