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
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
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