Independant Reading Blog#7: 'Tis - Setting

Frank McCourt's 'Tis is written in the unique setting of New York in the 1950's, a time and place where the prosperity of the post war economy was being enjoyed to its fullest. However, in the same city, at the same time, there was also a large population of people living in poverty. Most of the impoverished being Irish or Puerto Rican, the two cultures within the poor population were further isolated due to cultural differences, as well as from the general population by their financial differences. Racism against both cultures is common at the time, even despite the Irish being white, and ancestors of many New Yorkers.
McCourt experiences various facets of life in New York City at that time. He worked in the rough and tumble docks, where you had to watch out for a bailing hook coming at your back. He went to school at NYU, where he sat beside middle and upper-middle class college students. He taught at a Manhattan high school, where he had to tame the kids before he could teach them anything.
Much of what McCourt was concerned about in his early years in Manhattan though, was finding accomodation. He goes through a number of boarding houses and hotel rooms, before he finds one that he's even remotely satisfied with. He is then, of course, forced to move for various reasons, and the process repeats itself. McCourt's travels through New York's Irish boarding houses gives you good idea of the social setting at the time. For example, all of the boarders he lives with drink heavily, all of the rooms he stays in are shabby and unkept, and many of the landlords have problems of their own. The church still often looked after the poor.