The antagonist in the Angela’s Ashes is Frank’s father, Malachy McCourt (Sr.) because his actions keep the McCourts destitute. (As antagonist is a character or obstacle in a literary work that opposes the protagonist and causes the major conflict.)
While his family suffers from crippling hunger, and his children contract diseases caused by weakness and malnutrition, Malachy drinks excessively and comes home roaring that his sons must be ready to die for Ireland.
After retiring from teaching writing at a variety of New York City high schools, Frank McCourt was determined to write about his early life in Ireland before coming to America.
The result, Angela's Ashes, was published in 1996 by Scribner and sold over 5 million copies; it has been published in 27 countries, translated into 17 languages and has won for McCourt the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the ABBY Award and the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Indeed, Angela's Ashes vaulted McCourt from an unknown sixty-year old first-time writer to a world-renowned author.
View Angela’s Ashes character list at Gradesaver.com.
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