Ironweed Case

Francis Phelan, the ex major league baseball from Albany most recently known as a bum, has had the furthest thing from a normal life. Francis has seen and been through many life-altering events in his life. The actions that we see in Ironweed, are such major events that no one would be the same after going through what Francis has. From the novel we get that Francis is very dependent on alcohol and uses this as one of his scapegoats. With Francis being one of the main characters in the novel a lot of attention and examination goes into him. Francis Phelan is a troubled man who is just looking for light at the end of the tunnel.

Francis is searching for answers when he comes back to town after being away for twenty-five years. Francis left town and abandoned his wife and children after killing their baby son of only a thirteen days old. We see Francis go through a lot of mentally painful challenges. Francis goes to work as a gravedigger where he is forced too see all of the painful deaths in his family. He see's his son Gerald the one he dropped and he also see's his parents and a few other blasts from the past. Francis can talk to the ghosts and interact with them making the novel a bit confusing at times. While Francis is able to interact with these people from his past that for some of them he was reason why they are dead, he thinks about his life and realizes the troubles he has been through, he does not however show any forms of guilt until the very end of the novel when guilt is the only thing that he has left to feel.

Another way in, which we see Francis struggle in the book, is through alcoholism. Francis's love for Helen is very strong in this novel, he does anything too look out and protect her. When he see's her for the first time since returning home in the soup kitchen we see their relationship right away. Helen asks him on page 37 Helens says to Francis, "That's wonderful. And you're sober. And you're eating. Just from that quote we can tell that the struggles that Francis has with alcohol is something serious. In the beginning of the novel where we learn that he dropped his baby son, you have to question whether or not he was drunk when this happened and whether or not it was something that could have been preventable. We later see that he drinks all his money away. Francis goes out to bars after making money all day and just spends it on alcohol. Francis lives day to day on the streets as a bum in New York living from drink to drink.