A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
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in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn can be dismissed as stereotypes, exhibiting quaint characteristics or representing outdated notions of both nobility or degeneracy.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—and in the society of the author’s time? What about our own?
4. At the time depicted in the book, women had very little power in society. They could not even vote until 1920. Yet women played a crucial role. Discuss the kinds of informal power that women had. For instance, the women in the Nolan/Rommely clan exhibit most of the strength and often 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—tell us about her character? How do her circumstances shape 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 from another character’s perspective. Choose one from the book and imagine how that person would see Francie and this world.
7. How can modern readers reconcile the frequent anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant sentiments that characters espouse throughout the novel? We are witnessing a resurgence of both. Why do so many fear and dislike immigrants?
8. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was written in a time familiar to, yet very different from, our own. Talk about Francie’s world. How has America changed in the time since the book was written? What accounts for that change and what factors contributed to it? Would a girl in Francie’s circumstances today face similar hurdles and hardships?
9. While this is Francie’s story, the city of Brooklyn itself is a major character. Describe Francie’s Brooklyn. How does this place mold the people like Francie who called it home? How much do our circumstances contribute to our development from childhood to adulthood? Would you consider the novel to be a love letter to Brooklyn?
10. Would you say that Francie—intelligent, caring, diligent—embodies the qualities that will propel her beyond poverty or beyond her neighborhood? Isn’t that what the American Dream is supposed to be? What about a girl born into a similar situation today? What hardships does she face? Do you believe in the American Dream or do you think it’s a myth or that it’s no longer viable today?
11. Talk about the book’s title. What is its significance?
*************Read Aloud and Bonus Content ********************
In the 1943 essay that follows, Betty Smith tells in her own words how she came to write A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The following essay was adapted from “How the Tree Grew” by Betty Smith, © 1943.
A.
Explaining over pale tea
When people ask me how I came to write A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, my answer depends on the kind of refreshment I’m having at the moment. If the place is a crowded living room filled with hatted and gloved ladies and I’m holding a cup of pale tea in one hand and trying to hold a baby sandwich, napkin, petit four, and a cigarette in the other hand, I reply this way:“I read so many stories and novels whose locale is claimed as Brooklyn. All were disappointing because they were about a city I didn’t recognize — a place whose inhabitants were too glibly characterized by their penchant for saying ‘skoit,’ ‘goil,’ and ‘erl boiner.’ It came to me that Brooklyn is not a city. It is a faith. You have to be born a Brooklynite; you cannot become one.
B.
Brooklyn is town of dark mystery and violent passes and gentle ways. There are astonishing customs and rituals of living hidden away from the outsider. Well, I am a Brooklynite. I know of these hidden things. One day I went out and bought a ream of paper and started to write a novel about my city.” That’s my story over teacups.
C.
In a college drugstore over milkshakes
Crowded in a student-filled booth in Chapel Hill’s college drugstore, drinking a chocolate milkshake out of a jumbo paper cup, and taking part in the violent pro and con talk about the merits of the writing of Carolina’s most famous literary alumnus, Thomas Wolfe, I answer the question this way:
D.
“I wrote this novel because I’m a Tom Wolfe in reverse. You see, he was born in North Carolina, was a member of the Carolina Playmakers, studied playwriting with George P. Baker, and finally went to live in Brooklyn to write a novel about North Carolina.
Now I was born in Brooklyn. I studied playwriting with George P. Baker, I became a member of the Carolina Playmakers, and finally went to North Carolina to write a novel about Brooklyn.” That’s my milkshake version.
E.
Over coffee with Mama
I remember a further back origin when I sit with my mother in the cool kitchen of her Brooklyn home and we share a pot of midnight coffee together.
“It started when I was eight years old. I was playing in one of those Brooklyn streets one sunny afternoon and I saw a group of right-minded housewives throw stones at a mother who wasn’t married. I grew up wanting to protest in some way against intolerance. So you see, Mama, the beginning of this novel really started when, as a child, I began to notice the world of Brooklyn around me.”
F.
And so it has been with me in all the years since I went away from Brooklyn. The pictures kept coming, tumbling over each other like eager acrobats, and they made a staggering pyramid of remembrances that grew higher with the years and threatened to topple over and bury me alive if I didn’t get them written down. And in the writing of the book my great problem was not what to set down but which of the myriad things to leave out.
G.
“For Betty Wehner … the tree that grew outside her bedroom window was much more than merely a sight for sore eyes. It was an ailanthus, a hardy variety of Chinese sumac renowned for its tenacity. It flourishes best, a New York poet once remarked, amid ‘dead vine leaves, a cigarette butt, and a paper clip.’Young Betty, herself a budding poet, saw the tree as a symbol of survival, a living reminder of her own struggle to escape the pain and poverty of Williamsburg.” (from the introduction to the 1989 edition)
New Yorker Article about this being a spy-novel
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