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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: Difference between revisions
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{{
[[File:ATreeGrowsInBrooklyn_9196.jpg|frame]]
1943 American novel by Betty Smith about Francie Nolan, a girl growing up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in the 1900s and '10s. It draws significantly on Smith's own experiences, dealing with poverty, vice, and issues of class, education and immigrant status.
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* [[Abusive Parents]]: Thomas Rommely (who "never forgave" any of his children for marrying and greeted them with "''Gott verdammte!''" [basically the German equivalent of "God damn you!"]); Johnny's mother (possessive, yet not affectionate) and whose reaction to the birth of her grandchild is to wail "Now she's got you good. You'll never come back to me." Katie kind of counts too, for her favoritism of Neely, which Francie picks up on.
* [[A
* [[Alcoholic Parent]]: Johnny.
** Played with though: While Johnny's drinking is destructive and ultimately kills him, he's always portrayed as a quiet, introspective drunk, instead of a belligerent, abusive one. On the other hand, when he's sober, he tends to act as if he's drunk.
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* [[Attempted Rape]]: When Francie is a preteen. {{spoiler|Katie rescues her by shooting the attacker.}}
* [[Bavarian Fire Drill]]: Sissy flashes a "Chicken Inspector" badge at the illiterate Italian family to get them to let her into the house.
* [[Betty and Veronica]]: For Johnny, choosing between Katie (Veronica) and Hildy (Betty).
* [[Big Applesauce]]
* [[Black Bra and Panties]]: Francie buys a set of black lace underwear, hoping her mother will disapprove. [[Open-Minded Parent|She doesn't.]]
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* [[Daddy's Girl]]: Francie to Johnny.
* [[Dark Reprise]]: The last verse of "Molly Malone." Johnny sings it when he comes home late at night, and Francie always tries to get the apartment door open before he can reach this verse.
* [[Dastardly Whiplash]]: The plays Francie goes to see have villains of this variety. As she grows up she finds it harder to enjoy them because of the lack of realism, and even thinks it would be smarter of the typical [[
* [[Dead Guy, Junior]]: Neeley, who looks exactly like Johnny and has all of his good traits without his bad ones.
* [[Determinator]]: Katie, who passes this trait on to Francie.
* [[Education Mama]]: Mary Rommely tells Katie that if she wants her children to rise in the world, one of the things she must do is read them one page a night from [[
* [[Embarrassing First Name]]: Neeley's real name is Cornelius, after a character from ''[[Julius Caesar]]''. [[Do Not Call Me "Paul"|He hates being called by it]] and insists on going by Neeley.
* [[Four
* [[Frothy Mugs of Water]]: In-universe -- when Katie reads Francie's diary, she insists that Francie sanitize all of the (frequent) references to her father's drinking by replacing the word "drunk" with "sick."
* [[Generation Xerox]]: Francie and Neeley essentially grow up to be like the parent of their respective genders.
* [[Good Bad Girl]]: Sissy is described in the page quote. One of her lovers even tells her, [[Hooker
* [[Good Girls Avoid Abortion]]: Katie didn't want to get pregnant the second time, but she refuses an abortifacient and has Neeley.
* [[Gratuitous French]]: Francie and Neeley jokingly use some around Katie, who doesn't know any.
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* [[Growing Up Sucks]]: And how!
* [[Hair of Gold]]: Johnny and Neeley.
* [[Hope Sprouts Eternal]]: The tree of the title ([
* [[Hot Mom]]: Katie.
* [[Hot Scoop]]: Francie after she gets a job working for a news bureau (but see [[I Am Not Pretty]]).
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* [[I Am Not Pretty]]: Francie believes this about herself, but this turns out to be untrue, based on the number of men who seem interested in her when she grows up.
* [[Immigrant Parents]]: Or grandparents, to be accurate. Francie stands out in that she's the only student in her class whose parents were actually born in America.
* [[It's All Junk]]: Francie's school compositions, which all earned A's because she imitated the books she'd read and wrote [[Purple Prose]] about beautiful subjects, none of which she had ever experienced firsthand. After Johnny's death, she begins writing grittier, more realistic, but still compassionate things about him, which her teacher criticizes as "ugly." Rejecting this idea, Francie realizes that her old essays were shallow and meaningless, and she [[Kill It
* [[I Was Quite a Looker]]: Sissy reminisces at one point about how nice her figure was when she was younger. Note that she apparently still is a looker, since men still seem to want her as much as ever (and that's after she's had ''ten'' children, mind).
* [[Law of Inverse Fertility]]: Sissy wants nothing more than to be a mother, but she has one stillbirth after another. Finally she gives up and adopts the illegitimate baby of an Italian girl, [[Implausible Deniability|insisting to everyone that she was pregnant and gave birth naturally]]. Soon afterwards, she has a healthy child of her own.
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* [[Marital Rape License]]: Discussed. See [[Sour Prudes]].
* [[Meaningful Funeral]]: Johnny's.
{{quote|
* [[Must Have Caffeine]]: All the Nolans drink very strong coffee almost constantly.
* [[My Beloved Smother]]: Johnny's mother, who is incredibly possessive of her sons.
* [[Narrative Profanity Filter]]: Repeatedly.
* [[New Transfer Student]]: Francie, after she switches schools to a better one in a different
* [[No Periods, Period]]: Averted (albeit euphemistically) -- Francie gets her period for the first time in the middle of a [[Heroic BSOD]] triggered by seeing the women stone Joanna, and she thinks her heart has literally broken and she's bleeding to death.
* [[Officer O
* [[Oh, and X Dies]]: Johnny.
{{quote|
* [[Older Than They Look]]: Both Francie and Neeley, which gets them jobs when they're really too young to be working, but need to for the money. Francie [[Back to School|goes to college]] and has a boyfriend when she's only fourteen.
* [[Oops, I Forgot I Was Married]]: Sissy. ''Twice''.
* [[Parents
* [[Parent
* [[Plucky Girl]]: Francie, of course. Katie was one herself when she was younger (see [[Determinator]]).
** [[Plucky Office Girl]]
* [[Rage Against the Heavens]]: When her father dies, Francie breaks down in tears and blames God for his death.
{{quote|
* [[Rags to Riches]]: The entire story, although it takes a while.
* [[Really Seventeen Years Old]]: Francie has to lie about her age in order to get her first job, and also when she starts dating Ben and has to confess about it (he's 21 when she's 15). However, being a [[Nice Guy]], he doesn't mind and lets her know he's willing to [[The
* [[Reformed Rakes]]: Katie marries Johnny because he's romantic and dashing, then tries to make him a reliable husband.
* [[Sadist Teacher]]: Nearly all of them, including the principal who apparently [[A Taste of the Lash|likes to whip little boys.]] There are a few [[Cool Teacher|CoolTeachers]] though, and they have a big impact on Francie.
** To the point that she transfers to a different school several blocks away in order to have a chance at some better teachers.
* [[She
* [[She's Got Legs]]: Francie observes that her boss' mistress has very nice legs and concludes that this is the reason he finds her attractive.
* [[Shrinking Violet]]: Francie, though she has [[Hidden Depths]] and begins to come out of her shell as she grows up.
* [[Silk Hiding Steel]]: ''All'' the Rommely women.
* [[Smoky
* [[Someone to Remember Him By]]: Katie is pregnant with Laurie when Johnny dies. It's implied that learning there was another baby on the way contributed to his death.
* [[Sour Prudes]]: The story is pretty heavy on the "women treat each other worse than men treat women" idea, with the obvious example being the neighborhood women who harass and eventually stone a girl who has a baby out of wedlock. The narration explains how miserable these women's marriages are.
* [[Stigmatic Pregnancy Euphemism]]▼
* [[Stocking Filler]]: Sissy, which suits her role as a [[Good Bad Girl]].
* [[The Storyteller]]: Francie, by way of Johnny.
▲* [[Stigmatic Pregnancy Euphemism]]
* [[Turn Out Like His Father]]: Played half straight -- Katie loves Neeley for the ways in which he's like Johnny, but hopes and prays he won't inherit the bad as well as the good, and tries to raise him to be the man Johnny should have been.
* [[The Unfavorite]]: As soon as Neeley is born, Katie realizes that she loves him more than Francie, mostly because she can transfer all her dying dreams for Johnny to him. However, she does her best to hide it, and we only feel [[Angst? What Angst?|the occasional twinge]] from Francie's point of view.
* [[Victoria's Secret Compartment]]: Sissy hides a bottle of whiskey in her bustier and gives it to Johnny, who's trying to detox.
* [[A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing]]: Lee, the army major whom Francie meets and {{spoiler|tries to get her to commit adultery with him.}} Luckily, she doesn't.
* [[A World Half Full]]
* [[World War
* [[Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe]]: Katie's attempts to read Shakespeare to her children despite having a grade school education.
* [[You Have to Have Jews]]: Although none of the major characters are Jewish (which is something of an aversion of this trope), Jews do appear as minor characters on quite a few occasions. Several of them regard Gentiles with scorn, either openly or behind their backs.
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[[Category:National Film Registry]]
[[Category:Young Adult Literature]]
[[Category:
[[Category:The Great American Read]]
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