How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
It's raining again and small children are playing in the hallway and up the stairs. Paddy says, Mind yourself, because some of the steps are missing and there is s*** on the ones that are still there. He says that's because there's only one privy and it's in the backyard and children don't get down the stairs in time to put their little arses on the bowl, God help us. (6.141)
Notice how McCourt structures this passage to show how Paddy is matter-of-fact about the feces-filled house. He doesn't seem bothered by it. It's all he's known his whole life, so he's just learned to deal with it. It illustrates the sad fact that poverty can destroy any expectations from life and make the worst squalor seem normal.
Quote #8
Seamus likes me to tell him what I'm reading. He says that story about Mr. Ernest Bliss is a made-up story because no one in his right mind would have to go to a doctor over having too much money and not eating his egg though you never know. It might be like that in England. You'd never find the likes of that in Ireland. If you didn't eat your egg here you'd be carted off to the lunatic asylum or reported to the bishop. (8.115)
Through this comic vignette, McCourt lays out the huge gap between the desperately poor and the people who don't know hunger. Even Seamus, a grownup, can't imagine a world where someone would refuse to eat, especially an egg.
Quote #9
Mam comes back up to Italy and sits by the fire wondering where in God's name she'll get the money for a week's rent never mind the arrears. She'd love a cup of tea but there's no way of boiling the water till Malachy pulls loose a board off the wall between the two upstairs rooms. Mam says, Well, 'tis off now and we might as well chop it up for the fire. We boil the water and use the rest of the wood for the morning tea but what about tonight and tomorrow and ever after? Mam says, One more board from that wall, one more and not another one. She says that for two weeks till there's nothing left but the beam frame. (12.76)
This passage shows the lengths the McCourts have to go to just to keep warm. This eventually gets them evicted. We can't say we don't understand why the landlord is doing it, but it shows how the effect of poverty builds on itself. You can't afford to maintain your place so you get kicked out so you're homeless and even hungrier—a vicious cycle. The words "tonight and tomorrow and ever after" show the relentlessness of the family's trouble and the worry this causes a young boy who doesn't know what to do about it.