Growing Up In Limerick, A Marxist Analysis

Growing up in Limerick, being poor while seeing wealth gives Frank the motivation to make his life better. I will use the Marxist lens to show how social class influences affect Frank and the decisions he makes. The way Frank and his family are treated by the church inspires him. His family relies on the money from the church. He is upset because of how difficult it is to get the money his family needs for survival. Frank is so poor that he begs and steals to get food for him and his brothers. Frank and his family are often at the mercy of others in order to stay alive. Frank is really bothered by the fact that certain people have so much and he has so little. This drives him to overcome the social class obstacles facing him in Limerick. Frank
is determined to overcome his place in society to make a better life for himself.
From the beginning, the reader can see the desperate state of Frank’s family. Everyday they have to beg for food. Even on Christmas they have to go to the Saint Vincent Paul society to beg for Christmas dinner. “Mam says she'd like to have a nice Christmas dinner, but what can you do when the Labour Exchange reduces the dole to sixteen shillings after Oliver and Eugene died? You pay the rent of six shillings, you have ten shillings left, and what use is that to four people?” (94). There are so many people on the dole that all the labour exchange is worried about is the number of people on the dole. When the McCourt family is ready to collect their dole Angela gets harassed and humiliated by the people in charge of handing out the dole. The families trying to collect the dole are poorer than poor, and there is nothing these people can do other than take the abuse from the government officials. If they do not their families will starve. Even when they get the dole it is not enough money to live off of. Multiple McCourt children end up dying due to lack of nutrition as well has poor sanitation because the money they get from the dole only allows them to live in the worst conditions possible. Their house is right next to the community bathrooms and their downstairs is flooded half the year. These horrid conditions are all people can afford on the dole. The government could give more money to these extremely poor people, but they want to keep the social class structure the same so they do not give people from this lower class an opportunity to succeed. Frank goes to Finton’s house during their lunch.
Finton eats lunch and does not share with Frank or Paddy. They get to the school gate. Paddy and Frank refuse to enter, “I’m not going in, Finton. You had your lunch. We had nothing.” (160). Frank is used to be mistreated and hungry by now. At this moment he realizes it is not about age it is about wealth. Finton’s family has money therefore Finton has food. Since Frank has no money and no lunch he and Paddy go out and steal lunch. Since both him and Paddy have no money they are forced to steal or go hungry. As Frank is robbing the orchard he says, “I don’t want to rob orchards and milk cows forever and I’ll always try to win Dotty’s apple peel so that I can go and tell Dad how I answered the hard question.” (161). After stealing from the farm we see that Frank has motivation to make his life better. He wants to be successful, and he wants to please his family. He is realizing the power certain people have and how the decisions these people make affect him because he does not have the power to make decisions for himself. He has bigger goals for himself then to grow up and fall into the cycle of poverty because of the way society is
drawn.
In Limerick, the Catholic Church is extremely powerful force in the community.
The church controls everything, they have the power and they use it control the social classes of Limerick. This is shown when Malachy tries to take Frank to become an altar boy, “This is my son, Frank, who knows Latin and is ready to be an altar boy. Stephen Carey looks at him, then me. He says, We don’t have room for him, and closes the door.”(149). Frank has been raised in a good Catholic home he is well prepared and more than capable of becoming an altar boy but because of his class he is not allowed to become one. Frank’s mother even says, “They don’t want boys from lanes on the altar. They want the nice boys with hair oil and new shoes that have fathers with suits and ties and steady jobs.”(149). The church has the power to pick and choose who they want to be altar boys. They use this power to only choose wealthy boys. This is showing Frank that he is being mistreated because of his social class. This power of choice that the church holds is shown once again when Frank tries to go to secondary school. “She knocks on the door at the Christian Brothers and says she wants to see the superior, brother Murray. He comes to the door, looks at my mother and me and says the do not have any room for him.” (289). This is the second time that the Church has slammed a door in Frank’s face and his mother is quick to point that out. This is another example of the power the church has to choose who it
wants to develop. Frank is capable of going on the secondary school but the church has decided due to the class he was born into that he should be uneducated and live a life of poverty. Events like this help Frank develop the drive to make money get out of Limerick so that he can have a good life and provide for his family.
Frank grows up extremely poor with many power groups in his way of being successful. These groups want him to be uneducated and continue living in a life of poverty. Frank wants more than that and take advantage of every opportunity to better himself. He plays this Robin Hood like figure taking from the rich and giving to the poor. He even helps the rich get money from the poor and then takes the money for himself and throws away the ledger to help the poor. He learns quickly that money equals power and the church and government have all of the power in Limerick. He does many in order to make enough money to accomplish his dream of moving to America.