Is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn about a young girl? Or is it about New York at the turn of the last century? Perhaps it is about the imperative of education…
Francie Nolan, poor, from an Irish family, and with an alcoholic father, grows up in Williamsburg. The story, told from the classic third-person omniscient point of view, incorporates layers of tale telling so effective that, at one point, 14-year-old Francie imagines herself a successful novelist giving her former English composition teacher her autograph. In reality, said teacher has chastised Francie for writing about harsh realities, instead of “birds and trees and My Impressions.” Meanwhile, Francie, has just lost her father, her mother is pregnant, and there is barely enough money to buy groceries. Why would she be writing about birds and trees? In her fantasy, she gets her revenge by coming back to visit the teacher at school after her first novel has been published. She imagines the dialogue in her head.
Francie
“Oh, the novel. I dashed it off at odd moments.”
Miss Gardner
(Timidly.)
“Frances, could I ask you to autograph it for me?”
Because Francie, and her brother Neeley, have been told by their grandmother and mother that education is the only way out of their predicament and because their mother, Katie, never gives up hope (working harder than anyone could possibly imagine) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is the ultimate American story. Yet, I can’t help wondering, what Francie and Katie would make of the next turn of the century, with its technology revolution and its gig economy, where very little is guaranteed, and the answers are not nearly as clear?