A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Chapters 44 - End: Spoilers

[Katy, Quarterly Long Reads]

For the week of May 26, 2013 - May 31, 2013, we are reading Chapters 44 - 56 of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Be sure to not give spoilers past these chapters.

[Katy, Quarterly Long Reads]

Summary of Books 4 & 5

At the start of Book Four, Francie and Neeley take jobs since there is no money to send them to high school. Francie works first in an artificial-flower factory, then in a press clipping office. Although she wants to use her salary to start high school in the fall, Katie decides to send Neeley instead, reasoning that he will only continue learning if he is forced into it while Francie will find a way to do it on her own. Once the United States enters World War I in 1917, the clipping office rapidly declines and closes, leaving Francie out of a job. After she finds work as a teletype operator, she makes a new plan for her education, choosing to skip high school and take summer college-level courses. She passes with the help of Ben Blake, a friendly and determined high school student, but fails the college's entrance exams. A brief encounter with Lee Rhynor, a soldier about to ship out to France, leads to heartbreak after he pretends to be in love with Francie when he is in fact about to get married. In 1918, Katie accepts a marriage proposal from Michael McShane, a pipe-smoking retired police officer who has long admired Katie, and has meanwhile become a wealthy businessman and politician.

As Book Five begins in the fall of this same year, Francie, now almost 17, quits her teletype job. She is about to start classes at the University of Michigan, having passed the entrance exams with Ben's help, and is considering the possibility of a future relationship with him. The Nolans prepare for Katie's wedding and the move from their Brooklyn apartment to McShane's home, and Francie pays one last visit to some of her favorite childhood places and reflects on all the people who have come and gone in her life. She is struck by how much of Johnny's character lives on in Neeley, who has become a talented jazz/ragtime piano player. Before she leaves the apartment, she notices the Tree of Heaven that has grown and re-sprouted in the building's yard despite all efforts to destroy it, seeing in it a metaphor for her family's ability to overcome adversity and thrive. In the habits of a neighborhood girl, Florrie, she sees a version of her young self, sitting on the fire escape with a book and watching the young ladies of the neighborhood prepare for their dates. Francie says, "Hello, Francie" to Florrie, and then, "Goodbye, Francie" softly, as she closes the window.

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tree_G...)

[Katy, Quarterly Long Reads]

Theme

Although the book addresses many different issues—poverty, alcoholism, lying, etc.--its main theme is the need for tenacity: the determination to rise above difficult circumstances. Although there are naturalistic elements in the book, it is not fundamentally naturalistic. The Nolans are financially restricted by poverty yet find ways to enjoy life and satisfy their needs and wants. For example, Francie can become intoxicated just by looking at flowers. Like the Tree of Heaven, Brooklyn's inhabitants fight for the sun and air necessary to their survival.
Idealism and pragmatism are weighed and both found necessary to survival in Brooklyn. Johnny lies about his family's address in order to enable Francie to attend a better school, presenting Francie with opportunities that might not have been available to her otherwise. Sissy helps Johnny recover from alcoholic withdrawals by appealing to his libido, helping Katie and Johnny to stay together despite Johnny's disease. Katie explains love and sexuality to Francie from two somewhat clashing points of view: as a mother and as a woman. The book revises traditional notions of right and wrong and suggests pointedly that extreme poverty changes the criteria on which such notions, and those who embrace them, should be judged.
Gender roles are more fluid in A Tree than in previous novels about young people. Katie's hands grow rough as she performs physical labor while Johnny's hands remain smooth and he wears expensive clothing. Francie doesn't fully begin to realize her own femininity until she can prove useful to her mother in childbirth. As Francie discovers her desire for companionship, she begins to understand the injustices women are often forced to endure when pregnant out of wedlock.

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tree_G...)

[Katy, Quarterly Long Reads]

Unlike Johnny, Sissy is a dynamic character in the novel—she changes from the beginning to end. As a young woman, she has many lovers and does not take her marriages seriously because they were not in the church. In Chapter 38, Francie notices that Sissy is stouter and no longer wears perfume—she no longer wishes to attract men. Even when Sissy accompanied Francie to her graduation, Francie noticed that she paid no attention to the man in uniform who the passed on the way. Now, Sissy's marriage in the church signals a complete change. Her husband feels assured she will never walk out on him, and the narrator says she is more in love than ever. In addition, she consents to calling him by name, a sign that she regards him individually, instead of one of many lovers, or "Johns." Sissy's feelings of regret about her past lovers also suggest a change. Now, lovers are a mere memory and not a temptation. Sissy's great gifts as a lover and mother are channeled in a more secure way.

Francie's and Neeley's dislike for alcohol shows that they are growing into strong young adults. This event signals that they will never have the same weakness as their father. Both seem to have inherited their father's romanticism; they can recreate it without drinking. New Year's in Brooklyn reaffirms the presence of strong ethnic communities, especially as the Germans and Irish get into a who-can-sing-louder contest. However, the way the German song drowns out Auld Lang Syne foreshadows America's entrance into the world war.

Francie's reaction to the war reassures us that she has not lost her poetic sensibilities. Although Francie works in mundane jobs, she remains eager to learn, observant, and a romantic. At the start of the new year, she recounts a story to her brother about seeing a tulip for the first time, and feeling so dizzy she had to sit down. She feels certain that she gets drunk on life, without liquor. When war breaks out, Francie responds as only a writer can; she thinks of herself in the position of storytelling. She immediately anticipates how the story will be told when she is old. Trying to "hold onto [the instant] as a living thing" is exactly what a writer does when he or she records a story on paper. Francie has collected numerous poems and rhymes from the newspapers she reads. Now, the way she notices the tiny details of her surroundings—the whorlings of the lining of her purse, the roughness of her stockings—suggest that she is the kind of person who can record places, moments, and stories. The author of the poem she slips in the time capsule is Walt Whitman, a poet who not only wrote about living in the moment, but also sought to record the American experience. Perhaps Francie will do the same.


Francie's jobs have given her a kind of education that she could never have received in school. Katie's eagerness to send her to college reaffirms her concern for her daughter's education. Although Katie has let Neeley go back to high school, she never sees this decision as replacing Francie's opportunity.

(Source: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brookly...)

[Katy, Quarterly Long Reads]

The last book in the novel is Francie's process of saying goodbye. By this time, Francie has a gained a good deal of self-knowledge and self-consciousness. She knows she will not come back to her neighborhood, and that she is visiting her old haunts for the last time. In Chapter 55, she has a passing thought that perhaps all of her experiences are not dreams, but that she is the dreamer. This philosophical self-consciousness shows that Francie is more aware of herself in her world; Francie seems to recognize that people's perceptions of the world are often more powerful than the world itself.

These two chapters also resolve Evy's circumstances. Once again, a strong Rommely woman takes the place of her weaker man. Just as Evy once learned to drive Drummer, now she takes Uncle Willie's place in the factory. When Katie writes Evy a check in the amount of Willie's death insurance, the narrator suggests that Katie thinks Willie is "as good as dead." If Willie's absence is a symbolic death, then it makes sense to compare Katie's and Evy's relationships with men. Both of their husbands are weak and worn out from lost dreams. Both women persevere, and find a way to provide for their families.

The last chapter tells of a Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn, just as the first Book begins on another Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn six years previously. Both the first Book and the last chapter take us on a virtual tour through Francie's neighborhood, and both discuss the tree in the yard. This writing technique produces an introduction and closure for the book. Of course, other than the setting, very little is the same: the reader experiences Brooklyn through the eyes of Francie at sixteen instead of Francie at 11.

Francie's stop at Cheap Charlie's dramatizes the differences quite well. Before, Francie would not even set foot inside. Now, she marches in and forces the owner to examine his conscience. Having become a woman, she sees the way Charlie deceives young children, and she also sees the reason that he has to do so—to take care of his own family. If Francie is no longer innocent, she has gained a tremendous amount of wisdom. Francie's stop at the library is a similar ritual: she lets the librarian know she has not paid her any attention in all the years she has come to take out books. Although these visits show that Francie has grown wiser and more assertive, they also are nostalgic moments. Wistfully, Francie gives Charlie $.50 to make one child happy, and she decides to keep her library card after visiting the old shabby building one last time.

The rest of the chapter continues to parallel the first Book. Just like Johnny rushes in to get ready for a gig in the first Book, Neeley comes home to get ready for the show. Francie irons her father's shirt in the first Book, and now irons Neeley's. When Neeley sings "Molly Malone" and calls Francie "Prima Donna" he symbolically replaces Johnny—he embodies Johnny's presence, and Johnny will continue to live through him. Francie again demonstrates her self-consciousness when she realizes that some little girl might be watching her just as she watched Flossie. She shows she is aware of time passing; younger girls are now living the life she once lived. This idea prompts the "good-bye Francie" that Francie says at the end of the book. "Francie," "Flossie," and "Florry" are all similar names. All three girls are connected by living a similar life—growing up in Brooklyn in the tenement district. Francie is not the only one growing up as a girl in a poor neighborhood. These three girls reassure that life will continue—that like the tree, there will always be little girls growing up like Francie, hopeful in times of hardship.

(Source: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brookly...)

[Katy, Quarterly Long Reads]

Here are some quotes from the book that different people have marked as Like

http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/...

[Katy, Quarterly Long Reads]

"A new tree had grown from the stump and its trunk had grown along the ground until it reached a place where there were no wash lines above it. Then it had started to grow towards the sky again. Annie, the fir tree, that the Nolans had cherished with waterings and manurings, had long since sickened and died. But this tree in the yard--this tree that men chopped down...this tree that they built a bonfire around, trying to burn up its stump--this tree had lived!"
- Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Ch. 56


I love this quote at the end of the book. I do like a hopeful, happy kind of ending. I felt that Ms. Smith gave Francie a nice hopeful future.

[Katy, Quarterly Long Reads]

6th Street in Brooklyn

[Katy, Quarterly Long Reads]

You can listen to The Diane Rehm Show where she did a reader's review of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/201...