A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
Created | Updated Mar 18, 2002
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, by Betty Smith is a beautiful novel. It is a story about life. More specifically Francie Nolan's life. The story spans her life from when she is born until she has grown up and she and her family are leaving Brooklyn. Francie is not a remarkable person, she does not grow up to be famous or do great things. This novel is simply the story of a typical poor family growing up in Brooklyn at the turn of the century. The story does not run in chronological order all the time. It tells often unrelated anecdotes, some sad, some hopeful, of the Nolan's lives. Through it all one gets a sense of change and growth, of Francie growing up and maturing, and of the world and people around her changing. Overall it is not either a sad or a happy book, rather it, like life, is a mixture of both. The ending itself I find to be a sad regretful one. Though Francie has grown up, is getting an education, and is now moving to a wealthier neighborhood, she is leaving her former life behind and you cannot help reminiscing about the good times the Nolans, and through them you, have had growing up in Brooklyn. There are so many happy memories you wish you could live over and over again, and it seems like the future can only get worse and more dull. It is like living in a field of wildflowers where it is a struggle to survive but through that struggle you are really living and are wild and free. then you move to a garden plot where you are given rich soil and water, but you are restricted to your straight row within a certain plot.
The main theme in this novel is one of perseverance. The title itself "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn," is a metaphor for the theme. In Francie's backyard there is a tree that has cracked the concrete, and grown up through it. This tree has been cut down several times and has had bonfires built on top of it to burn out its root system. Despite all these hardships, the tree manages to grow and to flourish as a beautiful tree. Francie and the Nolans are growing up in Brooklyn, a harsh setting, where they must scramble for their next meal. Francies mother must work for hours cleaning other people's houses, ruining her beautiful hands. Francie and her younger brother Neeley collect junk and sell it for pennies. Someone who can read and write is rare, and the people are crude and violent.
Despite all this hardship, Francie manages to find joy and happiness and to grow and to flourish.
Francie is a thoughtful and imaginative child. She thinks about what people say and how they act and often has surprising insights into their lives. She has a flare for embellishments and writes beautiful poems about forests she has never seen. She gets A+ on all her compositions until she grows older and starts writing about things that are important to her, her life and her fathers drinking. Then her teacher tells her that she is writing about ugliness and she should burn these terrible compositions because one does not write about ugliness. As Francie grows older she uses her thoughtful insights to her advantage and her imagination serves as an escape from her harsh life. Her poverty (once again the setting butts its ugly head in) teaches her to be resourceful and she manages to go through school and help support her family at the same time. She learns hard work and morality from her mother, Katie, and a love of life from her father, Johnny. Johnny, before he died, was a loving father who would burst into song at any moment and was always having notions and taking the children places. His only weakness was that he was week. As well as taking notions of taking Francie somewhere exiting, he would also take notions that he was a horrible father and life was too much for him. That is when he would begin to drink and it would take a crises to make him stop. He was not a bad drunk, he only became thoughtful and morose, but eventually the alcohol killed him.
There is much foreshadowing in "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn." Johnny's death is foreshadowed. During her thirteenth year Francie kept a diary, here are some excerpts: Jan.10. Papa sick today
April 2. Papa hasn't worked for three weeks. There's something wrong with his hands. They shake so much he can't hold anything.
May 10. Papa sick. Had bad nightmares in the daytime and screamed. I had to get Aunt Sissy.
Katie's, Francie's mother, marriage to Sergeant Michael McShane is foreshadowed. Both of them have sick spouses who aren't expected to last much longer. When McShane is looking at her at the fair Katie is selfconcious and puts on gloves to hide her scarred hands. The book momentarily shifts its focus to McShane and he thinks warmly of Katie. Before he is going to come to their house Katie asks Francie how she would like him for a father.
There aren't really any other major events to be foreshadowed, only small anecdotes.
I enjoyed this book very much. I found it to be very believable, all the characters had believable personalities, and each had their share of good and bad traits. The writing style was very smooth and flowing, I did not notice that I was reading I only saw the images in my head. The plot was not especially interesting because nothing much happened, but the plot was not the important part of the story so I enjoyed it anyway. I t is a slow moving and somehow relaxing book and I found it to be very thought provoking. It made you think mostly about human nature its good and its bad. This is a story about life, overall not sad or happy, but like life, beautiful. The one feeling it left me with was one of time running out. It made me want to have my live always to be filled with things. There are so many experiences to be had, emotions to be felt, and moments to be shared that life cannot possibly be long enough. There is one paragraph in this book that I think accurately describes this feeling:
(Talking about time capsule she has just made)
"If I open this envelope fifty years from now, I will be again as I am now and there will be no growing old for me. There's a long, long time yet before fifty years…millions of hours of time. But one hour has gone already since I sat here…one hour less to live…one hour gone away from all the hours of my life.
"Dear God," she prayed, "let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry… have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere-be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honourable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.""
The main theme in this novel is one of perseverance. The title itself "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn," is a metaphor for the theme. In Francie's backyard there is a tree that has cracked the concrete, and grown up through it. This tree has been cut down several times and has had bonfires built on top of it to burn out its root system. Despite all these hardships, the tree manages to grow and to flourish as a beautiful tree. Francie and the Nolans are growing up in Brooklyn, a harsh setting, where they must scramble for their next meal. Francies mother must work for hours cleaning other people's houses, ruining her beautiful hands. Francie and her younger brother Neeley collect junk and sell it for pennies. Someone who can read and write is rare, and the people are crude and violent.
Despite all this hardship, Francie manages to find joy and happiness and to grow and to flourish.
Francie is a thoughtful and imaginative child. She thinks about what people say and how they act and often has surprising insights into their lives. She has a flare for embellishments and writes beautiful poems about forests she has never seen. She gets A+ on all her compositions until she grows older and starts writing about things that are important to her, her life and her fathers drinking. Then her teacher tells her that she is writing about ugliness and she should burn these terrible compositions because one does not write about ugliness. As Francie grows older she uses her thoughtful insights to her advantage and her imagination serves as an escape from her harsh life. Her poverty (once again the setting butts its ugly head in) teaches her to be resourceful and she manages to go through school and help support her family at the same time. She learns hard work and morality from her mother, Katie, and a love of life from her father, Johnny. Johnny, before he died, was a loving father who would burst into song at any moment and was always having notions and taking the children places. His only weakness was that he was week. As well as taking notions of taking Francie somewhere exiting, he would also take notions that he was a horrible father and life was too much for him. That is when he would begin to drink and it would take a crises to make him stop. He was not a bad drunk, he only became thoughtful and morose, but eventually the alcohol killed him.
There is much foreshadowing in "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn." Johnny's death is foreshadowed. During her thirteenth year Francie kept a diary, here are some excerpts: Jan.10. Papa sick today
April 2. Papa hasn't worked for three weeks. There's something wrong with his hands. They shake so much he can't hold anything.
May 10. Papa sick. Had bad nightmares in the daytime and screamed. I had to get Aunt Sissy.
Katie's, Francie's mother, marriage to Sergeant Michael McShane is foreshadowed. Both of them have sick spouses who aren't expected to last much longer. When McShane is looking at her at the fair Katie is selfconcious and puts on gloves to hide her scarred hands. The book momentarily shifts its focus to McShane and he thinks warmly of Katie. Before he is going to come to their house Katie asks Francie how she would like him for a father.
There aren't really any other major events to be foreshadowed, only small anecdotes.
I enjoyed this book very much. I found it to be very believable, all the characters had believable personalities, and each had their share of good and bad traits. The writing style was very smooth and flowing, I did not notice that I was reading I only saw the images in my head. The plot was not especially interesting because nothing much happened, but the plot was not the important part of the story so I enjoyed it anyway. I t is a slow moving and somehow relaxing book and I found it to be very thought provoking. It made you think mostly about human nature its good and its bad. This is a story about life, overall not sad or happy, but like life, beautiful. The one feeling it left me with was one of time running out. It made me want to have my live always to be filled with things. There are so many experiences to be had, emotions to be felt, and moments to be shared that life cannot possibly be long enough. There is one paragraph in this book that I think accurately describes this feeling:
(Talking about time capsule she has just made)
"If I open this envelope fifty years from now, I will be again as I am now and there will be no growing old for me. There's a long, long time yet before fifty years…millions of hours of time. But one hour has gone already since I sat here…one hour less to live…one hour gone away from all the hours of my life.
"Dear God," she prayed, "let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry… have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere-be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honourable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.""
