Coming of Age in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn :: Tree Grows in Brooklyn Essays

Coming of Age in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn   Betty metalworkers A Tree Grows in Brooklyn presents the problems of a child growing up, the coming of age when one meets challenges and overcomes obstacles.  The protagonist, Francie Nolan, undergoes a self-discovery as she strives to mature living in the Brooklyn slum despite its poverty and privation.  Thus, Smiths thematic treatment of the struggle of maturity has become for the reader an exploration of loneliness, family relationships, the evil of innocence, and death and disease.   One of the challenges of growing up is loneliness. As a subtile child living in Brooklyn Francie had no friends her age, the kids in her neighborhood that would hasten been candidates for friends either found her too quiet or shunned her for being different. Betty Smith describes on page 106 how most of Francies childhood days were spent So in the warm summer days the lonesome child sit down on her stoop and pretended disda in for the group of children playing on the sidewalk. Francie played with her imaginary companions and do believe they were better than real children. merely all the while her heart beat in rhythm to the affecting sadness of the song the children sang while walking around in a ring with hands joined. As time went by and Francie got honest-to-goodness she began to get to know a different kind of loneliness. Betty Smith narrates her feelings on page 403 Spring came early that year and the sweet warm nights made her restless. She walked up and down the streets and through the park. And wherever she went, she saw a son and a girl together walking arm-in-arm, sitting on a park bench with their arms around each other, standing intimately and in silence in a vestibule. Everyone in the world moreover Francie had a sweetheart or a friend she seemed to be the still lonely one in Brooklyn without a friend. Loneliness is one of the challenges we essential all conquer as part of maturing and it helps us learn to be independent and overcome hardship.   Family relationships are a second problem face by all in their coming of age. Francie loves her Johnny Nolan, her father, more than anything, she adores the air he talks and the way that he sings.