Summary: Chapter X
The family moves upstairs to escape the cold and wet.
Angela soon sickens and turns feverish, calling out for lemonade.
Frank steals two bottles of lemonade from a crate outside South’s
pub and a loaf of bread from a van parked outside O’Connell’s grocery
store. To entertain his brothers, Frank embellishes the story of
how he got the food and drink, and Michael calls him an outlaw.
Malachy says Frank is no different from Robin Hood, who steals from
the rich and gives to the poor. The next day, Frank steals a whole
box of food that has been delivered to a house in a wealthy area
of town. The boys have enough food, but no fire. They go to a rich
neighborhood and go door to door asking for turf or coal, but no
one will help them, and they soon resort to stealing fuel from people’s
back gardens.
A guard soon appears at their home to find out why the
boys have been absent from school. The official tells Frank to get
his Grandma and Aunt Aggie, who in turn send for the doctor. The
doctor diagnoses Angela with pneumonia and drives her to hospital,
while the McCourt brothers go to stay with Aggie.
Although Pa Keating is kind to his nephews and gives
them food, Aggie constantly abuses the boys, hitting them and yelling
at them. The protagonist writes to his father and explains that
his mother is in the hospital. Malachy returns to Limerick to look
after his sons, but he leaves for England again the day after Angela
gets back from the hospital. Because Frank’s father only sends one
of his paychecks home, Angela is soon forced to appeal to the Dispensary
for money again. Frank’s sadness at their situation turns into despair
when he sees his mother begging for food outside a church. Frank
is so ashamed that he is hardly able to look at his mother, whom
he describes as a “beggar.”
Analysis: Chapters IX–X
Grandma berates the protagonist for ruining his eyes with
“[b]ooks, books, books,” but reading offers Frank a temporary escape
from the world’s miseries.
We see again in Chapter IX that dignity is of paramount
importance to Angela. Although the McCourts have no money and live
in squalor, Angela is determined to save them from a low-class mentality.
She criticizes mothers who call their children in to dinner and name
the menu, announcing their riches to the lane. She says it is not classy
to show off that way.
Out of respect and pride, the McCourts do not criticize
their father in public, however much he deserves it. One boy calls
his father, who never sends money from England, “a drunken oul’ shit,”
but Angela and her boys would never speak of Malachy in such a way.
This good behavior may not help the family get enough food to eat
or enough coal to heat their house, but it keeps their standards
high.
