A Tree Grows In Brooklyn Analysis

C.S. Lewis, am extremely popular fantasy writer, once said, “Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides, and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.” Both novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith, have become beloved novels for people of all ages. Betty Smith uses honesty to cast on the experiences of people from around the world and all different circumstances, while Mark Twain adds the humor of children and their intelligence. Although in the novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the setting, such as the city life or the tenement building, tells the reader a
lot about Francie, it is the little details and moments throughout the story, such as family, knowledge, the fall from innocence, and love, that reminds people of their own lives. Despite the fact that Tom Sawyer and Francie Nolan seem extremely differently, they are actually quite similar in many pivotal ways, such as their journey to maturity, their unique personality, and their dreams.
It is clear that Francie Nolan undergoes a self discovery throughout the novel as she tries to endure the difficulties of living in Brooklyn, where there are high levels of poverty and deprivation; although Tom Sawyer does not have to live in a slum environment, he does, in fact, overcome several obstacles that lead to a tremendous transformation in his character as goes on a quest for his identity. As Tom is tricking Ben Rogers, his friend, into another one of his shrewd scams, the episode goes, “‘Oh come, now, you don’t mean to let on that you like it?’ The brush continued to move. ‘Like it? Well I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?’ That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tow wept his brush daintily back and forth—stepped back to note the effect—added a touch here and there—criticized the effect again—Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said: ‘Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little,’” (Twain 23). As described in this well known whitewash scene, Tom was an imaginative and astute young boy with a melodramatic personality that relied primarily on antics and pranks to get what he wants and to escape from trouble, as well. Unlike Francie, Tom barley took anything earnestly and did not have any real conflicts in the beginning; Francie being the quiet girl who sat on her balcony Saturday morning reading, Tom was her exact opposite when the novel begins for he was often the leader and most of the time the organizer of the childhood pranks that took place in the safe and the bright town of St. Petersburg. As Francie, her brother, and her father were trying to haul up their humongous tree they won at the annual tree-catching event, their mother stood and watched them progress really slowly up the stairs as she thought of how she was planning to save her children from their harsh life, “‘They think this is so good,’ she thought. ‘They think it’s good—the tree they got for nothing and their father playing up to them and the singing and the way the neighbors are happy…They can’t see that we live on a dirty street in a dirty house among people who aren’t; much good. Johnny and the children can’t see how pitiful It is that our neighbors have to make happiness out of filth and dirt,’” (Smith 206). As Francie becomes older, she begins to congregate information about the poverty dominated world she lives in; as she beings to lose her virginity, poverty becomes less chaste, and she has to face the reality of hardship, such as her father’s death. Unlike Tom Sawyer, Francie’s strong desire to succeed is cut off because poverty interfered in her ambitions; Tom Sawyer’s economic condition was never a problem and it hardly put a restriction on his adventures as he moves from one to another. Both novels follow the transformation of their protagonist, Francie Nolan and Tom Sawyer, from their childhood to their adulthood as they both face several difficult challenges, which they accumulate experience and knowledge, mainly through sorrow, which initiates their transition.
Both stories tell a tale of two young children as they shift to the next part in their lives that includes wisdom, growth and intuitiveness. The moments after her mother informed her that her father had passed away, which marked the starting point of the working lifestyle for the children, was by far the most important fall from innocence, this being one of the events that brought her a tremendous amount of pain, rather than knowledge, “‘Your father is dead,” she told them. Francie stood numb. There was no feeling of surprise or grief. There was no feeling of anything. What Mama just said had no meaning…‘From now on,’ she said, ‘I am your mother and your father,’” (Smith 282-299). After her father’s funeral, life for the Nolan family as they know it changes dramatically as Francie is forced to grow up a huge amount because she has to pretend she was older than she actually was in order to do the job for someone who was twice her age, her brother has to juggle work and his education, and most importantly her mother had to play the role of both parents while carrying her unborn baby sister. The fact that Francie has to cross the Williamsburg Bridge, the same bridge that Francie used to stare at in the distance on the rooftop, to get to work every day, is a symbol for her transition from a child to adult; when Lee Rhynor breaks Francie’s heart, which was the last significant fall from innocence, Katie, whom Francie now calls mother rather than mama which shows that she is no longer the child she was, comes to a conclusion that no mother in the world can protect her children from this type of anguish. Although Francie grew a whole lot more throughout the story, Tom Sawyer matures as well, especially during her testimony at Muff Potter’s trail, which was a very essential juncture in his transition from a child to an adult, “Tom began—hesitatingly at first, but as he warmed up to his subject, his words flowed more and more easily; in a little while very sound ceased but his own voice; every eye fixed itself upon him…the boy said, ‘—and as the doctor fetched the board around and muff potter fell, Injun Joe jumped with the knife and—,’” (Twain 156). Up until Dr. Robinson’s murder, most of Tom’s adventures were innocent and comical, but after he witnesses his first real conflict in the novel, his character begins to change as he experiences more and more eye-opening episodes; as Tom’s guilt and concern for Muff Potter accumulates, he finally decides to abandon his blood oath that promises concealment and go with his beliefs and attest for Muff Potter’s innocence, displaying true maturity. Throughout the whole novel, Twain uses Tom’s interactions with the other characters to show how he is maturating, such as the cave scene which he had to conquer in order to master maturity; although Tom’s ignorance and immaturity cause them to get lost in the cave, his steadfastness, perseverance, bravery and his ability to be skillful and prompt in the cave get them out of it eventually. Although both characters approaches growing up with a great amount of courage and maturity, the way they change and grow throughout the novels is different in several ways; Francie is transformed into a new person because she lost her innocence and began to view the world differently with the help of her immense amount of wisdom she accumulated along her journey into adulthood, and unlike Francie, Tom remained the lighthearted and loving person he was in the beginning, but from the sundry dangers he experiences, he learnes to accept the idea that adults in his life have influence on his actions.
As innocent children, Tom Sawyer and Francie Nolan, have hopes, dreams, and goals of how they would like their lives to be, and throughout each novel, their goals, or intents, fuel their dreams, some achievable others not.
Throughout the novel, the plot is filled with Tom’s ordinary dreams, hopes and goals, which he cycles through pretty fast, indicating that he has an extremely active imagination such as, “What if he turned his back, now, and disappeared mysteriously? …The idea of being a clown recurred to him now…No, he would be a soldier, and return after long years, all war worn and illustrious. No—better still, he would join Indians, and hunt buffaloes…But no, there was something gaudier even than this. He would be a pirate! That was it!” (Twain 65). Unlike Francie, who has more serious and realistic dreams, Tom has a somewhat boyish belief that he will become a pirate or a robber in the future, which fueled by his trip to Jackson’s island, or even his idea to make a robber gang, even after finding the buried treasure. Tom Sawyer is the type of character that likes to imagine himself playing the roles that are usually exciting or even romantic, starting with making colossal dreams; his list of silly aspirations are similar to those fantasies of boys who are the same age. The American dream drives the Nolan family’s lifestyle, hoping that education will rescue them, and one day the Nolan children will live a better life, “It was so simple…Education! That was it! It was
education that made the difference! Education would pull them out of the grime and dirt...That’s what Mary Rommely…had been telling her all those years. Only her mother did not have the one clear word: education!” (Smith 207). The bedtime ritual of reading Shakespeare and the Bible was the start of Francie’s education journey and with her mother and grandmother’s determination and her hard work and stubbornness, education becomes the way which she finally escapes poverty that she was raised in originally. Although Francie and Tom’s dreams are completely different, they share one thing in common, which is that at least one of their dreams came true; Tom got exactly what he wanted form the beginning by finding the buried treasure and Francie is going to attend University of Michigan with the help of McShane where she will be able to achieve the American Dream, the reason for the Rommely family’s immigration to the United States. Both characters face some kind of conflict with their dream throughout the book, either internal, like Tom who has a conflict with his own imagination, or external, like Francie who lives in a frantic neighborhood that tries not to lose all her hope of getting a college education.
The personalities of the main characters, Tom and Francie, set the tone for most of the book.
Francie comes from a family of strong women, and although she is poor and does not experience much of the wonders of the world, she appreciates the little stuff in her life, which makes her who she is, “She was made up of all of these good and these bad things…she was the books she read in the library…Part of her life was made from the tree growing rankly in the yard. She was the bitter quarrels she had with her brother whom she loved dearly. She was Katie’s secret, despairing weeping. She was the shame of her father staggering home drunk. She was all of these things and of something more...It was something that had been born into her and her only,” (Smith 72-73). Although, at times, both characters can seem rebellious, Tom with his adventures and Francie with her writing, they both have a moral sense and pure hearts. Tom is able to memorize lines from stories and re-create situations, and Francie is constantly making up a whole world inside her head, trying to read every book in the library, and telling stories to herself, indicating that they are both exceptionally smart children, but use their highly eminently mental skills differently. Tom Sawyer is a keen observer, just like Francie is, “He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain…work
consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do, and that play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do,” (Twain 24). It is clear that throughout story, Tom Sawyer, a devilish, mischievous, and bothersome boy, is a troublemaker and is often getting his friends and himself in and out of trouble. He has a constant source of energy inside of him and a craving for adventure and is immensely popular among the other children, unlike Francie who has a hard time making friends. Although the plots of the two novels are entirely different, the characters’ introspective nature makes them similar in many ways, and through their actions throughout the book, the reader can learn a lot about their hidden personality. These two novels have become all time favorites because they are the type of books that simply cannot be condensed to the plot line, for both books remind there reader what being human truly means. Although Tom stays behind at St. Petersburg, Francie was ready to say goodbye, not only to her beloved community of Brooklyn or to the apartment buildings she spent most of her time in, but to the girl she was when the novel first opens on a Saturday morning. The ending of both books leaves a sense of peace for the characters because they are both going to live a better life; Tom finds the treasure and Francie is on her way to a make her college dream a reality. The glory of both books is seen through the people and the worldwide emotion they induce. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer celebrates the excitement, innocence, mischief, and freedom of youth and proves that children ought to enjoy their youth while they have it, rather than grow up. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn shows that people just have to be hopeful when life continues to through hardships.