Does fate play the greatest role in the novels or is it the difference in personality that is the true divider between the success and failure of the two major characters?

With such similar tales to tell but ultimately different endings it is easy to suggest that fate has ‘chosen’ different paths for the two of our characters. Both McCourt and Jude seek to better themselves from the lower class upbringings they both share. McCourt lived not only through the poverty but the ‘pompous priests’, the ‘shiftless loquacious alcoholic father’, the ‘pious defeated mother’ and the ‘bullying school masters’.  McCourts early life in New York consisted of living in squalor with rags as clothes and sour milk as his food. After the death of his younger sister the McCourts family’s problems seem to increase with his fathers alcoholism reappearing and his mothers depression reaching new heights. It was often left to neighbours to clean and feed McCourt and his siblings as lack of money caused Angela and Malachy, McCourts parents, the inability to provide the necessities for their children. The back setting of the American Depression, which is mentioned on various occasions, sets the context and helps to explain why the McCourt family is so poor aside from the wasted money on alcohol by the father. Jude’s childhood as an orphan raised by his working class great Aunt is also one of low class stigmata’s, although the poverty is not there as within McCourts memoirs. Jude appears to live a comfortable life with the necessities but never any of the riches that high or even middle class families may enjoy. Class division is a theme that runs through both novels and is a problem that both McCourt and Jude face throughout their lives. It is not until the move back to Limerick in Ireland and as Frank McCourt has aged that any class distinction becomes noticeable to the young McCourt. Because of the low class status Jude and McCourt hold as youths both characters find that they are unfairly denied many opportunities even though they both have the intelligence and eagerness to learn. 

Religion also plays a large role in both McCourt and Jude’s life, but neither character is shown the mercy and lenity that the Church is supposed to offer its followers. Jude Fawely wishes to join the church as it is seen as an accademically significant career. The rejection Jude faces from his ecclesiastical betters in Christminster lead him to in turn dismiss the church and its believes. Jude finds himself in a ‘chaos of principles…groping in the dark…acting by instinct and not after example’. Hardy’s novel is brimming with biblical allusions and quotations, yet it portrays a world in which displays of religious belief are largely a ‘luxury of the emotional and leisured classes’.  Religion also has a large influence over the actions of Frank McCourt. It is also the Church that prevents McCourt having the opportunity to further his education as the Church runs his local Catholic grammar school, and due to his slum like appearance they reject him. As a child McCourt is in constant fear of the Church, its clergy, Hell and God.  The Church is meant to be a service of guidance, but to McCourt its idea’s conflict with his own feelings and emotions. For a long time during McCourts life he feels that he is already condemned to an eternity in hell. These feelings grew from his experiences, McCourt feels guilty about his own sexual feelings and actions, as well as any other small sin any young child would be likely to commit. McCourt’s image of the Church is only increased when he returns to America and is propositioned by a priest on his first night. McCourt is left with the feeling that ‘God torments you’.  

Family history is a large problem that haunts both characters in these novels. Jude is placed under the impression that there is a curse on his family that prevents any successful marriage. His own parents ended up dead, which is seen due to their marriage, and his great Aunt has stayed away from marriage all her life, “The Fawleys were not made for wedlock: it never seemed to sit well upon us”.  It is true that Jude's first marriage to Arabella Donn is a failure, however it is not the statute of marriage that seems to be the problem for Jude as even Sue Brideshead's avoidance of marriage can not prevent the ultimate failure of there partnership.  It can also be said that the lower class upbringing Jude had been given by his Aunt led to the demise of any hopes Jude may have held to gaining a further education and career within the church. McCourt also holds some demons from his families past that he carries with him throughout his childhood and that surface during his adult life as well. The ‘curse of the Irish’ is one that follows McCourt to America with him. His own Father’s drinking problem that cast the McCourt family into poverty, is continued by a depressed Frank McCourt who believes he his failing in his dreams. McCourt always feels like an outsider in the same way that Jude always feels an inferior in the city of Christminster to the intellects that surround him.