A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn begins in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Contemplating a word to describe it, Smith decides that “Serene was the only word for it; especially on a Saturday afternoon in summer”. This sets the tone for the pages to follow. An eleven-year-old girl, Francie Nolan, is introduced with a fitting description of her house and yard. Smith illustrates the one tree in her yard that had “pointed leaves which grew along green switches which radiated from the bough and made a tree which looked like a lot of opened green umbrellas. Some people called it the Tree of Heaven”. Smith goes on to say that the tree “liked poor people” and grew in only neighborhoods that they lived. With this at the start of the novel, it infers that wealth and class will mater throughout the novel. You can see another hint at this theme when children would yell “Rag picker! Rag picker!” at other children despite their similar upbringing and economic status.

Smith describes a typical Saturday for Francie and the other children in her neighborhood. Francie and her brother, Neeley, spent their walks home from school collecting an assortment of trash and kept it in the cellar until Saturday mornings. They would bring the stuff to Carney who would pay them for it and would give girls an extra “pinching penny” if they let him pinch their cheek. Following this, Smith says that Francie would turn the money over to Neeley even though he was a year younger than her because “he was the boy; he handled the money”. Shortly after, the siblings go the candy store, Cheap Charlie’s, and only Neeley goes inside because “by an unwritten law, it was a boy’s store”. This sets up for the role that gender will play and the different treatment of Francie and Neeley.