Challenges

“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” Response

Sub-theme: Challenges

Growing up is a roller coaster, you have your ups and your downs. Sometimes you have to face your challenges, and sometimes someone does that for you. Either way, life is hard to get through, especially being a gullible child that no one listens to, simply because you aren’t a grown up, which makes you immature and foolish. Francie and all of the other characters in “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” have many problems, serious or small, but they all learn to deal with them in their own unique ways.

Francie is growing up in a bad part of Brooklyn, New York. She faces all different types of challenges every single day, whether it has to do with money, or school, or even troubles within her family. Her father, Johnny, has a serious drinking problem. Although Francie loves her father, she knows that he makes bad decisions and has to try to live with that. Katie, Francie’s mother, also has challenges due to her husband’s problem. She is known as the girl that married the drunk, and she has to deal with that also. That shows that not only children have challenges, but grown women and men struggle, too.

Another problem that Francie has is realizing that fantasies are fantasies, they aren’t things that happen in the real world. As Francie grows older, and is getting closer to being a women, she sees things differently. She sees that her mother is trying her hardest, although they have close to nothing. They made up games so it seemed like it was just pretend, and now Francie knows that they aren’t the real deal, they are just games that she thinks are for immature children. Every person goes through this in their lifetime, they become an adult, or at least think they are an adult, and don’t have as much of an imagination.

Everyone has a bump in their road, some bigger than others, but there isn’t anyone that doesn’t have to face a challenge. All of the characters in this book have a major problem or challenge. Francie is very poor and doesn’t have any friends, Neeley is also very poor and has many friends, but he is trying to become a man too quickly and can’t enjoy childhood to the fullest. Johnny is a drunk and can’t keep his job, and Katie is a very pretty girl who is poor and has to work all of the time to support her family. This family has tons of challenges thrown at them, but that doesn’t stop them from loving each other and supporting each other and times of need. That is something that we, as people, need to learn, that you can get through anything, as long as you have people that love and happiness.