A Tree Grows in Brooklyn |
by Betty White |
Praise For This Book:
A profoundly moving novel, and an honest and true one. It cuts right to the heart of life. . . . If you miss A Tree Grows in Brooklyn you will deny yourself a rich experience. New York Times
One of the most dearly beloved and one of the finest books of our day. Orville Prescott
One of the books of the Century. New York Public Library
For more praise visit the publisher's website.
*Author Website:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Smith
*Discussion Questions
1. In a particularly revealing chapter of
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,
Francie's teacher dismisses her essays about everyday life among the
poor as "sordid," and, indeed, many of the novel's characters seem to harbor a sense of shame about their poverty. But they also display
a remarkable self-reliance (Katie, for example, says she would kill herself and her children before accepting charity). How and why have
our society's perceptions of poverty changed - for better or worse - during the last one hundred years?
2. Some critics have argued that many of the characters in
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
can be dismissed as stereotypes, exhibiting quaint
characteristics or representing pat qualities of either nobility or degeneracy. Is this a fair criticism? Which characters are the most
convincing? The least?
3. Francie observes more than once that women seem to hate other women ("they stuck together for only one thing: to trample on some
other woman"), while men, even if they hate each other, stick together against the world. Is this an accurate appraisal of the way things
are in the novel?
4. The women in the Nolan/Rommely clan exhibit most of the strength and, whenever humanly possible, control the family's destiny. In
what ways does Francie continue this legacy?
5. What might Francie's obsession with order - from systematically reading the books in the library from A through Z, to trying every
flavor ice cream soda - in turn say about her circumstances and her dreams?
6. Although it is written in the third person, there can be little argument that the narrative is largely from Francie's point of view. How
would the book differ if it was told from Neeley's perspective?
7. How can modern readers reconcile the frequent anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant sentiments that characters espouse throughout the
novel?
8. Could it be argued that the main character of the book is not Francie but, in fact, Brooklyn itself?Discussion questions from the publisher.
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Book Summary |
Harper Perennial | 512 pages | ISBN: 9780061120077 | ISBN 10: 0061120073 | 05/30/2006
Through it is often categorized as a coming-of-age novel,
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is much more than
that. Its richly-plotted narrative of three generations in a poor but proud American family offers a
detailed and unsentimental portrait of urban life at the beginning of the century. The story begins in
1912, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, where eleven-year-old Francie Nolan and her younger
brother, Neeley, are spending a blissful Saturday collecting rags, paper, metal, rubber, and other scrap
to sell to the junk man for a few pennies. Half of any money they get goes into the tin can bank that
is nailed to the floor in the back corner of a closet in their tenement flat. This bank, a shared resource
among everyone in the family, is returned to time and again throughout the novel, and becomes a
recurring symbol of the Nolan's self-reliance, struggles, and dreams.
Those dreams sustain every member of the extended Nolan family, not just the children. Their mother
Katie scrubs floors and works as a janitor to provide the family with free lodging. She is the primary
breadwinner because her husband Johnny, a singing waiter, is often drunk and out of work. Yet there
is no dissension in the Nolan household. Katie married a charming dreamer and she accepts her fate, but she vows that things will be
better for her children.
Her dream is that they will go to college and that Neeley will become a doctor. Intelligent and bookish, Francie
seems destined to fulfill this ambition - Neeley less so.
In spite of (or perhaps because of) her own pragmatic nature, Francie feels a stronger affinity with her ne'er-do-well father than with her
self-sacrificing mother. In her young eyes, Johnny can make wishes come true, as when he finagles her a place in a better public school
outside their neighborhood.
When Johnny dies an alcohol-related death, leaving behind the two school-aged children and another on the
way, Francie cannot quite believe that life can carry on as before. Somehow it does, although the family's small enough dreams need to
be further curtailed. Through Katie's determination, Francie and Neeley are able to graduate from the eighth grade, but thoughts of high
school give way to the reality of going to work. Their jobs, which take them for the first time across the bridge into Manhattan, introduce
them to a broader view of life, beyond the parochial boundaries of Williamsburg. Here Francie feels the pain of her first love affair. And
with determination equal to her mother's, she finds a way to complete her education. As she heads off to college at the end of the book,
Francie leaves behind the old neighborhood, but carries away in her heart the beloved Brooklyn of her childhood
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