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A tree grows in brooklyn coming of age
A tree grows in brooklyn coming of age
A tree grows in brooklyn journal
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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Francie Nolan, A Questing Hero
In the fictional novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith tells the life experiences of one girl growing up in Brooklyn, New York. The main character of the book, Francie, fulfills the pattern of a questing hero. Smith leads the reader through the high points of Francie's life as well as the low. One learns of all the obstacles Francie accomplished and while reading, begins to love and appreciate the girl.
The reader is first introduced to Francie when she is at the age of eleven. Francie is an average, normal girl growing up in Brooklyn in the year 1912. She doesn't have many friends and her family doesn't have much money, however she enjoys reading and is constantly finding ways to amuse herself. Being as young and innocent as she is, life seems nearly perfect for Francie. Eventually though, Francie realizes that this isn't the case and, in a sense, looses a bit of her innocence.
On her thirteenth birthday, Francie starts to write in a journal. She begins by writing, "Today I am a woman". In just too short years, Francie grew, learned, and changed immensely. She is a completely different person than the one who existed two years earlier, both physically and mentally. Francie learned the serious and nearly devastating news that her father is a drunk, and she begins writing entries in her journal such as 'Jan 10: Papa sick today'. In her journal, Francie also wrote about her curiosity with sex. By this point in the book, Francie is no longer the girl that the reader first met, but she is now a young woman.
Although under a fake identity, Francie begins attending school and finds that she truly enjoys it. However, on her way home from school one day, at age fourteen, Francie experiences a horrific moment, one that can never be forgotten. She was molested and nearly raped by a neighborhood sex fiend. As if not traumatizing enough, Francie also watched her mother shoot the man in her defense. Not long after this, an even greater event takes place in Francie's life. She is informed of her father's death, that she is told had been caused of pneumonia.
Coping with her father's death is a struggle, yet Francie begins to live life again with the love of her family and by keeping herself preoccupied with other tasks.
“Picking up the pieces of their shattered lives was very, very difficult, but most survivors found a way to begin again.” Once again, Helen was faced with the struggle of living life day-to-day, trying not to continue feeling the pain of her past.
The main character in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, is certainly the brilliant and resourceful Francie Nolan, however, three other characters in the novel deserve credit for guiding Francie through her troublesome childhood. Francie Nolan grows up in the slums of Williamsburg, Brooklyn in the early 1900s. Despite Francie’s lifestyle of poverty and distress, she manages to work several respectable jobs, attend college and, fall in love. Although Francie works hard, she would not have been able to survive without the encouragement and support of Johnny Nolan, Sissy Rommely and Katie Nolan.
From close-mouthed to communicative, oblivious to obsessed, indifferent to independent, The Bean Trees shows all sorts of changes that can occur in unimaginable situations. Making these transformations seem so real, Barbara Kingsolver effectively brings the book to life by allowing the characters to uniquely grow and thrive in all sorts of circumstances just like we do in the real world. Lessons could even be taken from what these people learned through their journeys in life and applied to how we carry ourselves in our daily lives. Independence, self confidence, persistence, and perseverance all prove to be integral qualities in succeeding in life no matter what it throws at us.
involved troubling situations. Look at how she grew up. The book starts off during a time of Jim
...d longs for her elder sister and mother. Frances is a good person – at heart – and is always looking out for her younger sister. Moreover, even though she has different views that her father and will always do the opposite of what is expected of her, it is seen that this insecurity is caused by James indeed. Frances feels that in order to gain security in her life, she must perform these actions. She feels compelled to live her life the way she does. Frances’s naughty and mischievous behaviour can be viewed as a weakness she possesses, and she longs to correct these weaknesses by her actions. She is not a role model by any means, but she is by no means the Devil’s advocate. A sincere heart – compelled by circumstances – does its best to make the situation turn out for the better than the worse, and Frances, through her love for her mother, inevitably does just that.
Afterward, she sums it up: "The complete list of losses. There they are. And it helps, I've found, if I can count them off, so to speak”. That same night, when Dede falls asleep, things are different; she does not hear the spirits of her sisters running through the house. Her telling the of the story of a great loss over to herself, honors the memory of sacrifice and she can find the sense of closure with the heroic tragedy of her dear brave sisters.
I read A tree grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. The story takes place in the summer of 1912 in Brooklyn New York. Johnny and Katie Nolan met very young in 1900. Soon, after six months of meeting, and getting married they have their first child, Francie Nolan who is eleven when the book begins. Later they have their second and last child Neely Nolan. As Francie grows up she begins to lose her innocence through a tree-throwing ritual and an encounter with a sex offender who was shot by Katie. Her father drinks more and more and becomes worthless. Katie then becomes pregnant with a third child, Annie Laurie. Johnny dies on Christmas day, which was five moths before his daughter was born. Francie stops believing in God the Christian faith and begins to do poorly in school. Francie and her brother work after finishing middle school in order to help out Katie. She can only afford to send one of he kids to school so she decides to send Neely, and Francie continues to work which allows them to live a little easier.
The Bean Trees is a novel which shows Taylor’s maturation; it is a bildungsroman story. Taylor is a developing or dynamic character. Her moral qualities and outlook undergo a permanent change. When the novel begins, Taylor is an independent-minded young woman embarking on an adventure to a new world. She has no cares or worries. She is confident in her abilities, and is determined to make it through life on her own. As she discovers new things and meets new people, Taylor is exposed to the realities of the world. She learns about the plight of abandoned children and of illegal immigrants. She learns how to give help and how to depend upon the help of others. As she interacts with others, those people are likewise affected by Taylor. The other developing characters are Lou Ann Ruiz, Turtle, and Esperanza. Together they learn the importance of interdependence and find their confidence.
The childhood of Frances Piper consists of inadequate love, loss of innocence and lack of concern, ultimately leading to her disastrous life. As a six year old child, she encounters several traumatic events, explicitly the death of her loved ones and the loss of her innocence. Over the course of one week, there have been three deaths, two funerals and two burials in the Piper family. “Frances was crying so hard now that Mercedes got worried. ‘I want my Mumma to come ba-a-a-a-ack.’”( McDonald 174). As a young child, there is nothing more upsetting than losing a mother. A family is meant to comfort each other to fulfill the loss of a loved one; however, this is not the case in the Piper family. Mercedes, only a year older than Frances, tries to console her even though she herself is worried. The loss of motherly love and affection has a tremendous impact on her future since now her sole guardian, James, expresses no responsibility towards her. Instead, he molests Frances on the night of Kathleen’s funeral to lessen the grief of his lost daughter. As a result “These disturbing experiences plague Frances with overwhelming feelings of low self worth and guilt that haunt h...
She is responsible for taking care of herself and Dab. Tree begins to see a ghost who reveals her early childhood to her. Throughout the novel we see Tree’s struggle with what the revelations signify about her life as well as her daily struggle to keep her tiny family—namely herself and her brother—afloat. SETTING: The story takes place in the late seventies.
Betty Smith’s novel A Tree Grows In Brooklyn is a tale of poignant family relationships and childhood and also of grim privation. The story revolves around the protagonist of the story, young Francie Nolan. She is an imaginative, endearing 11-year-old girl growing up in 1912, in Brooklyn, New York. The entire story revolves around Francie and the Nolan family, including her brother Neelie, her mother Katie and her father Johnny. An ensemble of high relief characters aids and abets them in their journey through this story of sometimes bleak survival and everlasting hope. As we find out, the struggle for survival is primarily focused against the antagonist of this story, the hard-grinding poverty afflicting Francie, the Nolan’s and Brooklyn itself. The hope in the novel is shown symbolically in the “The “Tree of Heaven””. A symbol used throughout the novel to show hope, perseverance and to highlight other key points.
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
Her parents meet at a social gathering in town and where married shortly thereafter. Marie’s name was chosen by her grandmother and mother, “because they loved to read the list was quite long with much debate over each name.” If she was a boy her name would have been Francis, so she is very happy to have born a girl. Marie’s great uncle was a physician and delivered her in the local hospital. Her mother, was a housewife, as was the norm in those days and her father ran his own business. Her mother was very close with her parents, two brothers, and two sisters. When her grandmother was diagnosed with asthma the family had to move. In those days a warm and dry climate was recommended, Arizona was the chosen state. Because her grandma could never quite leave home, KY, the family made many trips between the states. These trips back and forth dominated Marie’s childhood with her uncles and aunts being her childhood playmates.
One cant imagine how it must feel to lose the ones they love and hold dear, but to stay afterwards and mourn the loss of the many is unbearable. Blanche has had a streak of horrible luck. Her husband killing himself after she exposed her knowledge about his homosexuality, her advances on young men that led to her exile and finally her alcoholism that drew her life to pieces contemplated this sorrow that we could not help but feel for Blanche throughout the drama. Blanche’s desire to escape from this situation is fulfilled when she is taken away to the insane asylum. There she will have peace when in the real world she only faces pain.
She continues in this sequel to talk about the abuse she faced and the dysfunction that surrounded her life as a child and as a teen, and the ‘empty space’ in which she lived in as a result. She talks about the multiple personalities she was exhibiting, the rebellious “Willie” and the kind “Carol”; as well as hearing noises and her sensory problems. In this book, the author puts more emphasis on the “consciousness” and “awareness” and how important that was for her therapeutic process. She could not just be on “auto-pilot” and act normal; the road to recovery was filled with self-awareness and the need to process all the pieces of the puzzle—often with the guidance and assistance of her therapist. She had a need to analyze the abstract concept of emotions as well as feelings and thoughts. Connecting with others who go through what she did was also integral to her