Social Awareness Project #2: Reading Response-A Tree Grows in Brooklyn By Betty Smith

                   A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: By Betty Smith

    Poverty has always been a huge social issue. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith portrays the everyday life of a poor family perfectly. It is about a girl, Francie Nolan who struggles with her family to survive everyday. She does chores such as going to the recycling shop or the “junkie” to get money from the hoarded items such as rags and paper. Although Francie is poor, she and her family make the best of everything. Francie and her family also have their thoughts and opinions on poverty and the issues they face connected to it. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn explains the hardships as well as the thoughts and issues connected to it.
    Most of us don’t, and hopefully will never understand the hardships of poverty. Francie must do chores that a normal young girl such as herself would most likely never have to do. For example, Francie and her younger brother, Neely, collect “junk”: Paper, rags, iron, and copper. This hoarded material is taken to the “junkie” where they can sell it for a small amount of money. Francie must also go grocery shopping instead of her mother because her mother must clean houses to earn money for their rent. However, this grocery shopping is no easy task. She must haggle and sometimes trick people so she can buy food at the lowest cost. She sometimes must fight with others to get food. In one scene of the book, she goes shopping and must fight with others to get a semi-week’s supply of stale bread. “ “I want bread!” Francie called out.A big girl gave her a strong shove and wanted to know who she thought she was. “Never mind! Never mind!” Francie told her. “I want six loaves and a pie not too crushed!” she screamed out.” She also goes to the butcher, and must trick the butcher in order to get freshly ground meat and not the ground meat off the “plate”, which is implied that the meat on it cannot be trusted to be fresh. “ “Lady was just in. Bought a quarter’s worth of round steak ground. Only I ground too much and here’s the rest on the plate. Just ten cents’ worth. Honestly. I only just ground it.” “No. My mother said ten cents worth of round steak.” Furiously the butcher hacked off a bit of meat and slammed it down on the paper after weighing it. He was just about to wrap it up when Francie said in a trembling voice, “Oh, I forgot. My mother wants it ground.” ”
    Francie and her family have different feelings about being poor, and their actions reflect this. Although they are poor, they purposely waste sometimes. Francie loves the smell of coffee. “As she ate her bread and meat, she kept one hand curved about the cup enjoying its warmth. From time to time, she’d smell the bitter sweetness of it. That was better than drinking it. At the end of the meal, it went down the sink.” Even though they are poor, Francie’s mom allows her to do this because she believes that when they are poor, it’s nice to have the luxury of wasting something. She says that if it makes Francie feel better than drinking the coffee, she can do that. The coffee symbolizes that the poor have pride too, and sometimes feel wasting something makes them feel better. Francie has pride, and sometimes feels embarrassed that she is poor. On Thanksgiving, her school had a small pie, and said that someone could have it. Francie didn’t want the teachers to pity her because she was poor, so she made up a story in order to get the pie. “ “I’m glad someone wants it,” said Teacher. “I don’t want it for myself,” lied Francie proudly. “I know a very poor family I’d like to give it to.” “Good,” said Teacher.” Francie’s actions show that like others, she also has pride and is often ashamed of saying she is poor. Instead, she pretends that she isn’t and lies.
    Francie and her family show that there is more to being poor than just the literal meaning of not having money. There are everyday struggles and issues that may not come up in someone’s life if they are not in poverty. Francie also shows us that being poor can cause someone to become self-conscious about it. Accepting charity even when you are poor is sometimes hard because of pride. The text made me feel that being poor doesn’t just mean you have no money, there are more complexities to it. It made me understand the issue from a perspective of somebody who is poor and know that it’s not just about getting by but also about pride and how others perceive you.