Charles Phelan, An Alcoholic And So Called Bum - 1266 Words

Although William Kennedy has written numerous novels about characters featured in Albany, Francis Phelan is quite a unique character in the novel Ironweed. Francis Phelan , an alcoholic and so called bum is struggling with his the responsibility of his past mistakes. He eventually comes back to his hometown Albany after running away and is facing his responsibilities. Throughout Ironweed, Francis is solely responsible for all the troubles in his life created by his own excessive drinking and aggressive behavior, and his denial of responsibility by running away from his troubles, and that does not make him a victim of his circumstances. The first incident that Francis is responsible for is dropping his 13-day old infant Gerald. Francis is solely responsible for this because should have been aware that as a father of a young child he should not have been drinking since he was taking care of the child. Francis had the opportunity to control alcohol intake which could have prevented the incident, but he chose to continue to drink for his selfish pleasure. This lack of judgment shows that Francis was at fault for this accident. To avoid responsibility, Francis claims that the three beers he had drunk that day were not enough to make him drunk enough to drop Gerald. However, the reader knows that consuming any alcohol can make an individual not aware of their surroundings. Even his friend Rudy thinks that it is odd that Gerald died from just a fall. Rudy tells Francis,