Characterization

This blog post is in response to the 3rd blog prompt.

The characters in this book are not typical; the way that they are described the best is through the conversations they have with each-other and their voices. For example, Frank's mother Angela has a specific style and voice that when the narrator writes her dialogue, right away I know who is speaking.

" It's your blood and 'tis a sad thing when a ma cant even drive a nail straight. It just goes to sow how useless you are. You'd be better off digging fields and anyway I don't care. I have pain in my back and I'm going to bed.
Och, what am i going to do? Dad says," (page 93, Angela's Ashes).

Angela is chastising her husband for his excessive alcohol abuse, and her stress of being a mother of two at this point is building up, especially having to deal with the death of her baby as well as her youngest son. The family is extremely poor, and the way that Angela expresses her emotions is revealed in her speeches to her husband. On the other side, her husband Malachy responds in a way that makes him seem like a drunk, the only characterization he has to describe him because Frank hardly mentions him, but when he does it is always in what his father says.