A Tree Grows In Brooklyn Essay

How does poverty affect Francie and her family's daily life?

When I first started reading A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, I just thought that it was the story of a young girl growing up in one of the 5 boroughs of New York City. However, what I never took into consideration before starting this book was the fact that Francie's life isn't at all what my life is like in modern Brooklyn. In the early 1900s, life was hard for people living in the tenement areas of Brooklyn, and families lived in poverty. There weren't many high-paying jobs around, and children as young as 14 (like Francie) had to get working papers just to support their family, and skip high school education to work full time jobs. The fact that she and her family lived in poverty affected Francie's life negatively through her friendships, education, and overall life experience.

Although many other girls her age also lived in poverty, being poor affected Francie's ability to make friends. Since most of her time was spent collecting garbage and scraps of metal to sell, she didn't have time to really interact with other children her age and because she was more of a loner she had even less interaction. Other children who came from poor families like Francie also had trouble making friends with anyone else besides other poor children, because the rich children would be selfish and act as though they were more important than the poorer children. As it stated in the book, the brand new 50 cent bows that the rich children wore everyday would feed Francie's family for a day, and poor, hungry children would gather around a rich girl eating candy hoping for a piece, but one she was full, she would simply throw the remaining candy down the gutter.

Francie's education was also affected by the fact that Francie and her family were poor. In classrooms, most teachers favored the few students who were rich, and had nice clothes and could afford to buy the teachers presents for Christmas. The poorer children were treated unfairly; they were seated in the back and the teachers looked upon them with disgust because they could not afford the luxuries that the richer children took for granted, like nice clothes. Francie wound up transferring to a school where all the children were treated more as equals, but had to walk miles to get there and had to use a fake address because the school was not in her district. Francie wound up going to a very good school, but had to go out of her way to get a decent education and be in a school environment where she was not discriminated against.

Overall, Francie's life experience was affected by her family's lack of money. She and her brother were always hungry as children and had to grow up at a young age so that she could work and help her family survive. Even as a young teen, she had to take on full-time job and skip high school so that she could support her family financially. She also had to see her own mother stressed out from work every day, and her mother cleaned other apartment in their building so they could live rent free even when she was toward the end of her pregnancy with Francie's little sister.

In conclusion, Francie's life was harder because of the fact that her family was poor. Francie was denied a carefree youth because she was forced to work at a young age and didn't have the time or money to do things that rich girls her age did. She was constantly worried about her family's financial state and even missed out on things such as school to deal with them. Although Francie's life was filled with hardship, she always had hopes and dreams for her future, like going to college. Throughout this book, she believed in herself, and no matter how hard things in her family got, in the end she became a stronger person because them.