Poverty In A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

Though Jeannette has a colorful past she proves herself as capable enough to be accepted into such a college and further proves her worth as a student in the college. She works her way through her years of college proving to be an incredibly self-sufficient young woman.

In Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Francie Nolan and her family struggle with many economical and emotional hardships in Brooklyn in the early 1900's. Her mother, Katie, and her father, Johnny, marry and have children at an extremely young age, causing their family's fate to be doomed right from the start. Francie, the older of the two children, has her mother's hard-work ethic, and her father's sentimentality and imagination. Through Francie's fear, humiliation, compassion, sorrow, pride, and disillusionment throughout the novel, she becomes the strong, intelligent woman she is. Francie is a sum of her family's suffering and experiences. With every incident, she loses some of her innocence.

Katie Nolan, Francie’s mother, is the main reason that Francie is able to survive her arduous childhood and succeed in life. Food, heat and protection are always available to the Nolan children even if it means that Katie has to work multiple jobs or even sacrifice some of her own needs. Katie gives all she can to provide for her children and Francie truly values her mother’s hard work. Francie appreciates her mother’s thougtful acts, but still, Francie develops

Poverty, people are born into it. People can sink into its grasp, or people can escape. But it’s a hard journey. As for Kevin Powells mother growing up in the south she never saw money, for “at the age of eight in a field picking someone else’s cotton”. (p. 86) Being in poverty is based out financial needs, being poor is one thing. Poverty is just below that, for you barley have enough to get by and sometimes you are places in a setting that could risk health or safety.

How did Francie mature as time progressed throughout the early years of her life? When Francie grew up and had to help support and keep the family together, she gained an early peek of maturity and womanhood. She then gained the privilege to be independent and earn the title of assistance. Meanwhile, as time passed she lost her father, Johnny Nolan, and had to earn income to keep the family afloat to continue to progress despite the hardship and heartbreaking sacrifices that lies ahead. From a little girl to a young woman, Francie learned to do things a lot earlier to help support and keep her family together with the power of gaining and losing at the same time.

Imagine coming home to a house that has no warmth or food. Constantly feeling like you are in a place you can’t get out of. This is how poverty may feel to others. The expeirences from the author Jo Goodwin Parker in the story “What Is Poverty” and the McBride family from the novel “The Color Of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute To His White Mother” show that there are various effects of living in poverty that include emotional problems, adolescent rebellion, and

Like Francie, the tree remains constant, yet still changes every so slightly with Francie as she navigates childhood to young adulthood to adulthood. The tree proves to be as stubborn as Francie is, fighting through every season and gaining more strength on its journey. In harsh contrast, Johnny Nolan is an incredibly soft character, who Smith depicts almost in a weak way. Johnny does not have his limits when it comes to two of the great loves of his life: alcohol and daydreaming. Yes, it is Johnny who instills the naivety of daydreaming into Francie, helping her to be the innocent child the audience meets at the beginning of the story, but ultimately, his addictions lead to his demise. Thorough a vast array of characters, Smith creates a tale with a variety of morals, fears, and everything in

Growing up poor in the Bronx and living with my mother and two siblings, I could relate to the “poverty” part of the reading On the Meaning of Plumbing and Poverty by Melanie Scheller. Scheller grew up in poverty with her mother and her siblings in rural North Carolina in the 1960s. They lived off the land in less than stellar conditions and at times in dilapidated housing which was all that her mother was able to afford.

Jeannette and her siblings adapt to self- sufficiency from a young age, from being emotionally and physically neglected by their parents. The children don’t expect anything so they learn to work with what they have and what opportunities come their way. Jeannette saw the suffering of the family and took this leadership for the family guiding her sibling in the correct path.

It is fascinating when two people from completely different backgrounds have common characteristics. A world of poverty is depicted in Liz Murray’s book Breaking Night (2010). The memoir tells the struggles of a young girl’s journey from living on the city streets to attending one of the top schools in the country. Although our lives are quite different, Liz Murray and I show similar traits through struggle and success.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn focuses on a poor American family in the early 1900s. They faced many hardships including those related to obstetrics. Medical care was not reliable during this time period and caused a variety of problems. The poor had the worst birthing conditions and were at a high risk for complications concerning themselves and the child. Betty Smith provides an accurate representation of medical care relating to delivery, infant mortality, and pregnancy at the turn of the twentieth century in her book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Jo Goodwin Parker’s essay, “What is Poverty?” is about Parker who has personally experienced rural poverty. She explains her story from childhood to adulthood. Parker’s struggles are overwhelming; look at any sentence, the evidence of her daily struggle is there. From her underwear to living arrangements, and everything in between, Parker resides in poverty. In her essay, she says to listen to the story of what poverty is. Then she talks about the different aspects of poverty. Parker talks about the lack of health conditions she and her three children suffer from. She decides to be a mother even though she has no ability to provide

Poverty is one of the main subject matters that is present in the book of The Other Wes Moore, and its consequences are revealed through various outcomes that are being portrayed by both characters. Poverty is being characterized through the social environment that both characters live in. Both Wes Moore’s were living in an environment that had an impact not only on the way they behave, but also their psychological behaviour. “Living in the Bronx and Baltimore had given me the foolish impression that I knew what poverty looked like. At the moment, I realized I had no idea what poverty was even in rassing sense of pride tentatively bloomed in the middle of the sadness I felt at my surroundings” (Moore, 2010). Moore explains this notion of poverty when he realizes how different poverty can be depending on the country. Through this statement, the author reveals that poverty is inescapable and it exists everywhere. In comparison, Gabor Mate’s In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction book, explains the notion of poverty in a manner that demonstrates how poverty is a result of societal issues, and when problems are combined they lead to stress, anxiety as well as depression. He further establishes how every individual has a way of coping with life hardships and stressors, some choose to seek help and others try to forget about the issues in which they encounter by using drugs, and their choice frequently depends on their social hierarchy or status. “In the

Poverty hits children hardest in the world. When I was younger, the Armenians had faced the hard facts of poverty after they break up with the Soviet Union, war with Azerbaijan, and a devastating earthquake. My family moved into our motherland Armenia while our nation was going through these huge dramatic changes. Furthermore the poor economy and inflation destroyed numerous hopes and futures. In the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, Arnold Spirit, describes his hardships involving poverty living on Spokane reservation. The people on the reservation are stuck in a prison of poverty. They are imprisoned there due to lack of resources and general contempt from the outside world, so they are left with little chance for success. Like Arnold, I also went through hardships regarding poverty and education.

Nelson Mandela once said, “Poverty is not natural it 's man-made.” This quote states that a person can overcome poverty if one has the desire to live a better life. In a novel called Poor People written by William T. Vollmann, the author travels around different countries and places to learn about poor people and to get a global perspective view. While interviewing different kinds of people, Vollmann would ask them one question: why are you poor? Looking at people 's answers Vollmann noticed that some of the people gave quite interesting answers. Vollmann went through a lot of situations where he just couldn 't imagine what life would be if he was ever to live like that. Another novel that has a similar poverty situation is called Let The Water Hold Me Down, written by Michael Spurgeon. Hank, the main character of the novel, experiences a tragic moment in his life. Losing his wife and daughter while drowning, this tragedy left him feeling like it’s all due to his miscarrying about them. His life becomes full of sorrow, and the only way out it was to go to Mexico to his friend’s place and restart his life over. In a new country of Mexico, this story takes place. Even though he had money, a house, and friends’ support, he still experienced lots of pressure trying to survive in Mexico. Poverty has different meanings in everyone 's lives but by reading these two novels, there are three similarities that can be made about people living in poverty.