TYPHOID FEVER
BY FRANK McCOURT
Name __________________________
Period ____
10 A/H English
Voice/Point of View – “Typhoid Fever”
Warm Up: Think back on a childhood experience when you feel an adult treated you unfairly.
It could be a time that you felt you were punished unjustly by a parent or teacher or a
time when someone told you to do something that you didn’t want to do. Looking
back now, can you see the situation through the eyes of the adult? Was there a reason
the person acted the way she/he did? How does looking back change the way you see
the situation?
Explain the differences among the following points of view. Include specific features of
each type and things to consider as a reader of each one.
 Omniscient:
 Third-person limited:
 First-person:
What are some possible issues with a first-person narrator?
Why might it be good to have a first-person narrator?
Typhoid Fever from Angela’s Ashes
By: Frank McCourt
Historical Context Notes
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Angela’s Ashes is a memoir from McCourt growing up in Limerick, Ireland (one of three
McCourt memoirs) – others are ‘Tis and Teacher Man
o 1930’s-1940’s
o Lived in a slum where typhoid and diphtheria common
Typhoid
o Fever
o Caused by contaminated food or water
o Causes body to waste away
o Infections that spread easily
o McCourt got fever when 10 and was sent to fever hospital
Diphtheria
o Spread by contact with others
o Starts as sore throat and can suffocate someone in end
o Infection that spreads easily
Fever hospital
o Places where quarantined typhoid and diphtheria patients
o Usually run by Nuns and the Catholic Church
Blood transfusion
o McCourt was given blood transfusion from soldiers stationed in Limerick garrison
World War II
o In Europe
o 1939-1945
o England suffered severe food shortages because of so much bombing
King Henry VIII – Moving from Catholicism to Anglicanism
o 1491-1547
o Had 6 wives
o Started the English divide from the Roman Catholic church so he could divorce his
wife
“The Highwayman” poem
o By Alfred Noyes, 1880-1958
o Based upon a true story of highwayman who falls in love with an innkeeper’s daughter
o Highwaymen were known to rob stagecoaches
 Seen as popular romantic figures in 18th century
o Nuns have such a problem with the story because woman commits suicide
 Suicide seen as mortal sin in eyes of Catholic church
Great Famine
o Ireland --1845-1847
o Blight -- Causes all of potato crops to fail
o Approximately one million people starved to death
o Kindled a wave of Irish immigration to US – Between 1820 and 1975, 4.7 million
Irish settled in America.
“Typhoid Fever” from Angela’s Ashes
Discussion Questions:
1. From what point of view is this story told?
2. Based on McCourt’s biography and the events of the piece, what do you think is the conflict (the
struggle at the heart of all of the action)?
3. How old are Frank and Patricia?
4. What is Typhoid Fever? How do you get it?
5. How would you describe Frances (Frank) McCourt? Where is he and why?
6. How would you describe Patricia? Why is she there?
7.
Who is Seamus? How would you describe him?
8. What does he bring to Frank? Why could he get in trouble?
9. Who comes to visit Frank each week? What does she bring him? What does this mean? Why
might this detail be meaningful in establishing Frank’s circumstances?
10. In evaluating the credibility of an autobiography, it is important to take the setting into
consideration. How credible is McCourt’s recollection of the hospital rules about laughing and
singing?
11. In one of the books from Patricia, McCourt reads some Shakespeare. What are the lines? What
does Frank think of them? What do the narrator’s thoughts reveal about him?
12. What is going on in the second poem that Patricia tells Frank?
13. Where is Frank moved? Why?
14. Why is his new location so creepy? What happened there in the past?
15. Think about the conflict, the struggle that Frank experienced in this excerpt. What do you think is
the climax, the point at which one side triumphs over the other?
16. What happens to Patricia? How?
17. Besides that they were friends, why else is Frank upset about Patricia’s passing?
18. What does Seamus do for Frank after Patricia’s death?
19. How does the poem end?
20. How do the lines from “The Highwayman” contrast with the stark reality of the Fever Hospital?
Why do you think the poem appeals to the two children?
21. What role did poetry play in the story? Why did McCourt include it?
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Do you think that the nurses treated Seamus and Patricia fairly? Do you think Frank’s
recollection was truthful? In what ways?
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Do you think that the point of view impacted how we as the reader saw different characters?
Explain.