While her husband was completely worthless to the family, she wasnt much better. A horrible mother. Those kids ran wild and raised themselves. If my children were starving, dying, and wearing rags, I'd put the tea and cigs down and use the money to tend to my children a bit better.
shareWell not everyone is as awesome as you are. You have no idea what it was like to be poor in Ireland and raise a bunch of kids and have a worthless husband, so don't act like you are some great person because you say you would do something you don't have to. She lived her life and had her faults like the rest of us and who are you to judge?
shareThe film really doesn't show her doing much of anything. Normally you could say that she was busy cooking and cleaning, but they lived in filth and had nothing to eat. The most initiative she takes is to become a super-cheap live-in prostitute for her cousin, which is just sad. There is a reason why she matched up with a loser husband.
shareThe film really doesn't show her doing much of anything. Normally you could say that she was busy cooking and cleaning, but they lived in filth and had nothing to eat.
I agree with Imtopeka --well said!
share@Imtopeka. You give the impression that being poor in Ireland and raising a bunch of kids is somewhat harder for others who might live elsewhere and have to do the same. Utter nonsense! You ask "who are you to judge?" Well how do you know that they're not qualified to judge based on their own experience of life?? Furthermore, do you know what it's like to raise a bunch of poor kinds in Ireland?? No, thought not.
shareTY the people who knew Angela say her son's story should not be taken as gospel and I am being nice here.
The primary character of Angela’s Ashes is without question Frank’s mother Angela who emerges from the narrative as a woman who cares little for her hungry and cold family, turns her back on an alcoholic husband, imposes herself on her family, silently accepts the hardships inflicted on her, lazily and selfishly lounges before the fire smoking cigarettes while her children starve, prostitutes herself with her own family members and goes through life on a selfish quest for pity, charity and state handouts.
The people who remember her say that this is a highly distorted, completely inaccurate depiction of the woman they remember as being almost the exact opposite of all these things. Those neighbours and friends and family who remember her insist that she was a delightful woman, who struggled valiantly to hold her family together and who earned the title ‘Angel of the lanes’ for her kindness to others.’
Paddy says that Angela was called the ‘Angel’ of the lanes and she was a robust, loving, caring woman – not the cold drudge that Frank paints her. He is infuriated by the allegation that Angela was having a sexual relationship with her first cousin ‘Laman’ Griffin
yeah- she only watched her kids die over and over. How dare she not clean the house.
She didn't cook or clean. She didn't raise her kids, just let them run wild. All she did was smoke, drink tea, cry and feel sorry for herself. She was no better than her husband. Being poor is no excuse for being worthless.
shareI don't expect you to have any form of intelligence, after all you are likely some middle aged woman with a poor level of education who has been living off her husband her whole life.
You can't look at somebody from an outside perspective who has lived a live polar opposite to you and judge them.
Wrong bensheppard. I am a 38 year old single mother who works full time and raises my son on my own. No child support, no alimony. His father is just as useless as Angelas husband. I make $13,699 a year. I am poor! My child is well taken care of, has everything he needs, and my apartment is spotless. No one can convince me that being poor is a good excuse for being worthless.
share[deleted]
I take it you don't know what it means to live in poverty.
Yes, dad was a real POS human being. But, he was driven that by stress, addiction and any other reasons you can think of. There are always a reason for people to do things.
But, mom, who probably wanted so much for her and her family, was being deprived of everything. Yes, she got selfish and felt sorry for herself. But, when you're in a state of depression, because you're not as great and wonderful as other people, when you've got little to no choices, you don't feel much like doing anything.
What bothers me is that nobody in that time did anything to help people like this. Nobody stood up against rich, elitist a-hole authority figures, who have the papers, capable of ruining your lives. People still don't stand up for the under-privileged. They say, "They made their choices" and then, they turn their backs on them. That's what is sick to me.
You wrote: "don't feel much like doing anything".
So, that's ok then? AWWW poor little Angela with a lousy husband and a awful life! She has all those kids and she just doesn't feel like doing much, huh? There have been plenty of times when my drug addicted ex made my life hell on earth. I didn't know if I would be able to pay the rent or buy groceries. I had to borrow, and yes, a couple of times I had to steal food and toliet paper from work. I was miserable. BUT..... I had a child to take care of. I HAD to do a lot, whether I felt like it or not. I dragged my pathetic, black-eyed, split lipped, hungry, sad self to work so I could take care of my child. When I finally got my ex out (prison) I had a new lease on life. I could do MORE for myself and my child.
When you have kids who depend on you, you have to take care of them, whether you feel like it or not.
[deleted]
I do not have much use for Angela either.
However, considering the death of THREE small children and herself being
malnourished all the time; it is likely she was suffering from clinical depression
or even post-partum depression as a result of serial childbirths.
The book does describe Angela as pretty much useless when it came to keeping house (her mother and Aunt Aggie harp on this) or holding a job of any kind. However, I can also understand her being too depressed with the deaths of the children AND her husband's alcoholism/worthlessness to be able to help herself or the kids much. Either way, I wouldn't call her a horrible mother, just a financially poor and uneducated mother.
shareHow about you actually read the book? To fully understand her that's exactly what you need to do. The movie doesn't do her justice.
shareSorry - i think your argument is wrong. Don't draw your own inferences. Look at what the movie shows you.
1) I did not see any full evidence of her not caring for her children. That part was not displayed clearly. Your making judgements. From one view of the movie, its more logical to assume that the poverty level was so high that Angela could only do as much as she did.
2 . I thought maybe you read the book which probably trashed Angela, but the last poster said the opposite.
3. Another poster is pretty bang on " I can also understand her being too depressed with the deaths of the children AND her husband's alcoholism/worthlessness to be able to help herself or the kids much. Either way, I wouldn't call her a horrible mother, just a financially poor and uneducated mother."
4 - Perhaps she could have ditched the ciggarettes. But its difficult to make a judgement here . When your all *beep* up, you ( everybody ) needs some kind of straw.
5 - Going to that fatso cousin was an act of heroism. She took the indignity for her children. Because whoring outside the house is so much more riskier, I think she took the right decision.
Loved the movie. Absolutely perfect title - "Angela's Ashes"
even monkeys fall from trees
This whole thread is riduculous...
shareSo you people are saying that if you are poor and uneducated it's ok to be worthless and not take care of your kids? Are you saying that the poor have it so hard that they cannot be held accountable for their own lives? That the poor decisons they make are not their fault because they are poor? It's ok to neglect the kids you still have because the others are dead? It's ok to do nothing to be productive in society or in their own lives because they are depressed? No wonder this country is in the state it is. I feel sad today, I think I'll go get on foodstamps and sit at home and drink tea and smoke while my son runs around town with holes in his clothes. It's ok because I'm poor, right?
shareI don't think anybody's saying it's OK to be apathetic just because you're poor and suffering - why do people so often have to assume the exact opposite of the ideal is seen as "OK" just because the ideal itself isn't met?!? - but it happens and it happens a lot. Also, I don't think you can compare your own situation with Angela's just because you're also poor, because it's all relative. For starters, you have an income, which in itself puts you in a world of decadent affluence compared to Angela. Secondly, you live in an era when women are free to get out and do something to improve themselves. It was only during WWII that women got out of the house and got jobs on a large scale, and Angela actually mentioned once that she could go and work in a factory, but her husband wouldn't let her, because "a factory is no place for a woman". It's not the place for him either, as it turns out, but anyway... :-O
sharescannon-9, I think what they were trying to say is "get over yourself".
shareYou clearly have no understanding of depression as an illness.
shareWhoring herself with her cousin was an "act of heroism"? Really?
Angela had options.
She could have gotten that job in the factory when her husband left. He wasn't there to stop her. She could have asked her mother, sister, or neighbor to take the kids for awhile while she worked. Offered to send money. If no one would take them, she could have taken them to an orphanage. She could reunite with them when she had herself put together.
She could have entered herself and the kids in a workhouse. Sure, conditions in a workhouse were bad in some cases (but was the life they had any worse?), but her kids would have been fed,clothed, schooled, and taken care of. She would have been fed and clothed as well. All she had to do in return is work at the workhouse. And they would have been together.
She could have taken in sewing, or worked cleaning houses, or babysitting. You don't need an education for these things.
When she got a little money in her hands she could have not bought the ciggs and tea. Instead she could have bought food. Or better yet, she could have bought seeds to plant and grow food. Surely they had a little patch of dirt outside. If she was concerned people would steal her harvest, she could have grown food in the house in plant boxes or pots. They lived in a slum. I'm sure there were tons of stray cats and dogs she could have caught and cooked up as well. That would have been free. Not savory, but she didn't mind cooking up pig and sheep heads for holidays, did she?
At the VERY least, the woman could have walked the streets to find a big stick and maybe some straw. She could have made herself a broom. She could have gotten a bucket of water and a rag and, you know, CLEAN the house so her kids didn't have to live in filth. Maybe she wouldn't have money for soap, but even plain water would have made things nicer.
But, poor little Angela did none of these things. Why? We will never know, but I suspect it was due to the fact that all these things required one thing she was unwilling to do. WORK.
Scannon - I'm not a woman - and I'm thinking here like a man.
I work hard to give my kids everything. As much as possible. Now the difference is that my kids have luxuries, so If i want to give them super luxuries, i can plan, work, take it easy, and do it some day. But if my kids had nothing, not even necessities, I would do any work to give them the necessities.
You saw the living standards in this movie, i doubt if Angela had done all you say she could, she would have been able to still give her kids a a better life than she did by whoring. If i was a woman in those circumstances, i would have been a whore ( putting it bluntly ) for my kids, however much i would hate myself for it
Darkness lies an inch ahead
[deleted]
Funny, I got that indication of her too, a sharpness I didn't like at all.
shareI have to disagree. I don't think she was a terrible mother. Flawed, definitely, but she loved her children.
If you put herself in her situation: she was having repeated childbirths, she watched the deaths of three of her children, she was married to an alcoholic who spent the dole money on booze, they lived in filth and they were starving hungry. It's a heck of a lot for one person to take on.
I wouldn't say the kids were really unhappy. They ran and played with other children and scenes in the movie show Frank having a great time with his pal. They went to the cinema, they played football. All right their childhood was extremely deprived, but it wasn't ALL doom and gloom. Frank has to earn some money as a child but he enjoyed the job.
I don't agree with the smoking but maybe it lessened her own hunger so her children could have more food. Times were tough.
I agree. She never really had a chance. She was young, had no tools or skills or power at all. Next thing she knows she's married with a kid to feed and care for, then another, and another. Birth control not allowed by law or society or her family. Then her kids die, her husband is worthless, she finds herself back in Ireland. It's like being hit by one giant wave after another, knocked windless. Depression is mentally and even physically disabling. If not for those damned cigarettes, she might have offed herself much earlier.
share