During the course of the story, Francie and her brother grow from preschoolers to young adults. Although times are hard, the Nolans have their love for one another, along with the moral support of extended family, to sustain them. The book portrays the hardscrabble existence that typified tenement life in pre-World War I America � a tapestry of birth, death, joy, tragedy, love, loyalty, and betrayal.
Smith�s richly detailed description brings the historical setting to life. Although told primarily through Francie�s voice, the author uses an omniscient point of view, occasionally revealing the thoughts and actions of other characters in the book. �Francie and all the members of her family are well-rounded characters. Thus, character, genre, and setting combine to make A Tree Grows in Brooklyn a fascinating example of the adolescent novel.� (Noffsinger)
Although this book was originally intended for an adult audience, teens will find the young protagonist easy to identify with. Her demands for independence and autonomy, the occasional shame she feels about her family, her emerging interest in romance, her growing ability to cope with disappointment, and her struggle to realize her dreams, mirror the issues facing contemporary teens. This example of bildungsroman shows Francie making choices that were out of the mainstream for her time: �. . . unlike many historical female bildungsroman, the book suggests alternative possibilities for self-actualization than marriage.� (Noffsinger)
The uninvited trees that spring up in Brooklyn, heralding a neighborhood�s doom, are a metaphor for the tenement dwellers who live in their shade. Clinging to a scrap of earth, shoving its way up through cement and asphalt, it sends forth new shoots from its stump and continues to reach for the sky. Francie describes this �Tree of Heaven� on the opening page of the book: �You saw a small one of these trees through the iron gate leading to someone�s yard and you knew that soon that section of Brooklyn would get to be a tenement district . . . That was the kind of tree it was. It liked poor people.� (p. 9) At the end of the book, as Francie is leaving her old neighborhood for a better way of life, she notices the new growth emerging from the ravaged stump of the tree which the landlord had cut down. �This tree in the yard�this tree that men chopped down . . . this tree that they built a bonfire around, trying to burn up its stump�this tree lived!� (p. 404)
Related Web Sites
Biography of Betty Smith: http://www.atreegrowsinbrooklyn.org/bio/bio.htm
Virtual Tour of Brooklyn:
http://www.thirteen.org/brooklyn/
Source
Noffsinger, John, et. al. 1992. Booksearch: Still good reading: Adolescent novels written before 1967. The English Journal 91 (4): 87-90. In JSTOR [database online]. Available from http://www.jstor.org. Accessed via TWU website 13 September 2004.
School of Library and Information Studies
TEXAS WOMAN'S UNIVERSITY