Due to malnutrition and smoking, Malachy Senior and Angela must get their teeth removed and replaced with false teeth. I could not help but be surprised by this because it almost seems as if the teeth are portraying a deeper message. The chapter would have been fine if McCourt removed this detail in chapter 5. This brought me to believe McCourt added this teeth section for a certain reason. I did some research and came across McCourt's deeper mention.
When an adult losses a tooth, it resembles a transition between growing up and growing old. This transition forces the growing old adult to start looking at the next stage in life; death. Losing teeth brings feelings of helplessness and powerlessness into one's life. It resembles, failure, embarrassment, poor health, financial instability, abandonment, pain, and death. False teeth indicate fear and being hypocritical. All of these could not represent the life of the McCourt family any better.
The parents, Malachy Senior and Angela, have reached that hump in every adults life where they realize they are growing old. The families financial instability brings poor health, helplessness, powerlessness, failure, embarrassment, and pain to the four members. Malachy Senior is the main cause of the families financial instability because he spends all the money he earns at the pub. He can not keep any job a long period of time, resulting in his frequent unemployment and hurting family. This leaves Angela feeling helpless, powerless, and abandoned. She blames Malachy Senior for the death of their two children Oliver and Eugene McCourt and the pain she feels. Malachy Junior and Frank feel embarrassed because their classmates laugh at them for how poor they are. The false teeth represent Malachy Senior perfectly because they represent someone being a hypocrite. He claims he loves his children, but he chooses to go to the pub instead of feed his family and keep them healthy and alive.
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