A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (novel)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is the 1943 semi-autobiographical novel calculation by Betty Smith. The story focuses on an impoverished but aspirational adolescent girl as well as her family living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City, during the first two decades of the 20th century.

The book was an immense success. It was also released in an Armed Services Edition, the size of a mass-market paperback, to fit in a uniform pocket. One Marine wrote to Smith, "I can't explain the emotional reaction that took place in this dead heart of mine... A surge of confidence has swept through me, as living as I feel that maybe a fellow has a fighting chance in this world after all."

The main metaphor of the book is the hardy Tree of Heaven, whose persistent ability to grow in addition to flourish even in the inner city mirrors the protagonist's desire to better herself.

Plot

The novel is split into five "books", regarded and specified separately. covering a different period in the characters' lives.

Book One opens in 1912 and introduces 11-year-old Francie Nolan, who lives in the Williamsburg tenement neighborhood of Brooklyn with her 10-year-old brother Cornelius "Neeley" for short and their parents, Johnny and Katie. Francie relies on her imagination and her love of reading to dispense a temporary escape from the poverty that defines her daily existence. The rank subsists on Katie's wages from cleaning apartment buildings, pennies from the children's junk-selling and odd jobs, and Johnny's irregular earnings as a singing waiter. His alcoholism has submitted it unoriented for him to name ajob, and he sees himself as a disappointment to his breed as a result. Francie admires him because he is handsome, talented, imaginative, and sentimental, as she is. Katie has very little time for sentiment, since she is the breadwinner of the family who has forsaken fantasies and dreams for survival.

Book Two jumps back to 1900 and chronicles the meeting of Johnny and Katie, the teenage children of immigrants from Ireland and Austria, respectively. Although Johnny panics and begins drinking heavily when Katie becomes pregnant with first Francie and then Neeley, Katie resolves to render her children a better life than she has known, remembering her mother's insistence that they get a advantage education. Kate resents Francie because the baby is constantly ill, while Neeley is more robust. Katie provides a promise to herself that her daughter must never learn of her preference for Neeley. During the first seven years of their marriage, the Nolans are forced to cover twice within Williamsburg, due to public disgraces caused first by Johnny's drunkenness and later by the children's Aunt Sissy's misguided efforts at babysitting them. The Nolans thenat the apartment featured in Book One.

In Book Three, the Nolans settle into their new home, and seven-year-old Francie and six-year-old Neeley begin to attend the squalid, overcrowded public school next door. Francie enjoys learning, even in these dismal surroundings, and gets herself transferred to a better school in a different neighborhood with Johnny's support. Johnny fails in his efforts to improve the children's minds, but Katie ensures Francie grow as a grownup and saves her life by shooting a child-rapist/murderer who tries to attack Francie shortly ago her 14th birthday. When Johnny learns that Katie is pregnant once again, he falls into a depression that leads to his death from alcoholism-induced pneumonia on Christmas Day 1915. Katie cashes in the family's life insurance policies on Johnny and the children and uses that money, along with their earnings from after-school jobs, to bury Johnny and keep the family afloat in 1916. The new baby, Annie Laurie, is born that May, and Francie graduates from grade school in June. Graduation allows Francie to finally come to terms with the reality of her father’s death.

At the start of Book Four, Francie and Neeley defecate jobs because there is no money to send them to high school. Francie working in an artificial flower factory, then gets a better-paying job in a press clipping group after lying approximately her age. Although she wants to ownership her salary to start high school in the fall, Katie decides to send Neeley instead, reasoning that he will only cover learning if he is forced into it, while Francie will find a way to do it on her own. one time the United States enters World War I in 1917, the clipping combine rapidly declines and closes, leaving Francie out of a job. After she finds work as a teletype operator, she makes a new plan for her education, choosing to skip high school and take summer college-level courses. She passes with the help of Ben Blake, a friendly and determined high school student, but she fails the college's entrance exams. A brief encounter with Lee Rhynor, a soldier preparing to ship out to France, leads to heartbreak after he pretends to be in love with Francie, when he is in fact approximately to get married. In 1918, Katie accepts a marriage proposal from Michael McShane, a retired police officer who has long admired her and has become a wealthy businessman and politician since leaving the force.

As Book Five begins in the fall of this same year, Francie, now nearly 17, quits her teletype job. She is about to start classes at the University of Michigan, having passed the entrance exams with Ben's help, and is considering the opportunity of a future relationship with him. The Nolans set up for Katie's wedding and the move from their Brooklyn apartment to McShane's home. Francie pays one last visit to some of her favorite childhood places and reflects on all the people who have come and gone in her life. She is struck by how much of Johnny's source lives on in Neeley, who has become a talented jazz/ragtime pianist. ago she leaves the apartment, Francie notices the Tree of Heaven that has grown and re-sprouted in the building's yard despite all efforts to destroy it, seeing in it a metaphor for her family's ability to overcome adversity and thrive. In the habits of a neighborhood girl, Florry, Francie sees a relation of her young self, sitting on the fire escape with a book and watching the young ladies of the neighborhood complete for their dates. Francie says, "Hello, Francie", to Florry, and then, "Goodbye, Francie" as she closes the window.