The Influence of the Family Members on the Life of Francie Nolan by Betty Smith

The two passages, Breaking Tradition by Kathleen Ernest and A Family Affair by Gina DeAngelis and Lisa Ballinger, portray the changing role of women during the Civil War and World War II. Each passage shows how war transformed women’s roles in society in the 1800’s. In the 1800’s, women’s opinions and decisions were restricted during the Civil War and World War II, due to laws and traditions.

In addition to his loving home life, Joe also experiences the dark side of toxic and abusive families. Family is the group of people closest to the individual. This can be beneficial if the family members harmonize, but it can also foster abuse if the family members do not respect each other. One example of this is how Linda’s mother acts when Linda is born. Mrs. Lark saves Linden, Linda’s twin brother, but the doctor “ask[s] if he should use extraordinary means to salvage it [Linda], the answer was no. No, let it die” (115). Linda’s mother disregards Linda’s rights as a human and her place as a daughter in the family. This scars Linda for life and ruins any chance of Linda and mother building a healthy relationship in the future. When Linda tells him her story, Joe realizes that he

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is split between two sections, the past and the present. The past depicts the epic love story of Katie and Johnny, an unlikely pair who fall in love instantaneously, and even though they are poverty-stricken, their love transcends all. The present depicts the lives of their children, and shows how they overcome their poverty and still live a happy, fun life filled with memories to be treasured

Betty Smith 's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn presents the problems of a child growing up, the coming of age when one meets challenges and overcomes obstacles. The protagonist, Francie Nolan, undergoes a self-discovery as she strives to mature living in the Brooklyn slum despite its poverty and privation. Thus, Smith 's thematic treatment of the struggle of maturity has become for the reader an exploration of loneliness, family relationships, the loss of innocence, and death and disease.

who always been deprived of father-figure, she feels the need to acquire attention from boys in

However, with her alcoholic dad who rarely kept a job and her mother who suffered mood swings, they had to find food from her school garbage or eat expired food they had previously when they had the slightest bit of money. In addition, when bills and mortgage piled up, they would pack their bags and look for a new home to live in, if they could even call it a stable home, since they would be on the move so often. Jeanette needed a dad who wouldn’t disappear for days at a time, and a mom that was emotionally stable, but because she didn’t have that, she grew up in an environment where she would get teased or harassed for it. Jeanette suffered so much, that even at one point, she tried convincing her mother to leave her father because of the trouble he had caused the family already. A child should be able to depend on their parents for food and to be there for them when they need it, and when that part of a child’s security is taken away, it leaves them lost and on their own, free and confused about what to do next.

She smoothes over Sofia's betrayal of the family, her running away and fighting with her father, by calling it lucky that she ended up with such a loving husband and a beautiful blonde baby. Her story about the thieves who got caught the night Sofia was born similarly reflects her desire to look on the brighter side of things. She needs this positive attitude to craft positive family stories out of unfortunate events.

The characterizations of Connie’s family members have great effects on Connie. And onnie’s mother’s characterization is the main motivator for Connie’s rebellion. She always compares Connie with June, who is the “ideal daughter” in her eyes, and blames Connie for some little things, such as improper dressing and not having a tidy room. Oates suggests that the reason for Connie’s mother prohibiting Connie to dress up like an adult is that “ Her mother had been pretty once too” (Oates 1), but now “her looks were gone and that was why she always after Connie” (Oates 1). Therefore, she is jealous about Connie’s beauty and feels uncomfortable when seeing Connie wear beautiful outfits. Meanwhile, she likes June so much because June is obedient and plain, which makes her feel that she is dominant in the relationship. In the short story, Connie’s father is not given much description by the author, but his characterization has an effect on Connie as well. The irresponsible father spends little time with family and seldom has conversations to his daughters. When hearing his wife’s complain about Connie, he just bends his head with saying nothing, which makes Connie feels ignored and lonely. Urbanski states that “The father, who spent most of his time at work, is weak” (Urbanski 200) to reveals the father is not an active figure in his daughter’s life. Therefore, lacking of the company and communication of family members, Connie becomes upset. In addition, Connie’s sister June, who has the opposite characterization, is also one of the reasons for Connie’s rebellion. In Connie’s eyes, June is a

Lastly, her family betrayed her by not listening to her side of the story after her sister told lies about her, and they betrayed her when they acted as if they did not care if she moved out of the house. In all of these actions, the family itself and certain members of the family are portrayed as uncaring, unsupportive, disrespectful, conniving, deceitful, and hateful to Sister. Through every action of the family, Sister is treated harshly, and she tries to not let this bother her. Yet, anger and bitterness build up inside of her until she cannot take it anymore. Consequently, it built up so much inside of her that it severely affected Sister so profoundly that she moved away from her home to get away from her family.

The setting changes while Francie continues to mature into a woman. She becomes 16, and is beginning to lead a life of her own. The family leaves the grieving they had for Johnny behind. Not only does Francie start out with a clean slate, so does the rest of the Nolan family. After the two and ½ years of mourning for Johnny, Sergeant Mc Shane asks Katie to marry him. War rages through the country. While he and Katie make arrangements for the fall wedding and gifts of money and whatnot, Francie makes headway in her personal life.

The tragic events of Francine Cournos memoir begins when she was three years old when she lost her father from cerebral hemorrhage. For some children this would be enough to permanently damage the psyche of a child, but when Francine was five she lost her grandfather to hemorrhaging and then when she eleven she also lost her mother after a long battle with breast cancer. This forced her sister and her to live with their grandmother, who was rapidly approaching senility. Francine and her sister, Alexis, being under their grandmothers care lasted until she couldn 't manage it anymore, which was about two years. Afterwards their extended family gave away both of them to the sometimes vicious foster care system. To Francine this was the most traumatic event of them all and

The mother/daughter relationship between Mrs. MacTeer and her two daughters, Claudia and Frieda, is loving and strong. They are taught their own self-worth through their mother’s strength and example, although this love isn’t fully appreciated by the girls until they are older. During Claudia’s illness, she is treated with a mixture of concern and anger. Although Claudia is scolded and her mother complains of cleaning her vomit, at the same time her mother is nursing her, giving her medicine, and checking on her throughout the night. Claudia discovers later that her mother’s anger is not directed at her, but at the world, as she must raise her black family in a world ruled by white culture. She protects her children and equips them for survival in a hostile environment.

Furthermore, success is so solo for Kate since seeking the higher education is almost the fateful dream of Morrison clan, from the Great-grand Mother Morrison to Kate’s parents. She works so hard to fulfill it after Matt “betrayed” it. However, by gradually involving in Daniel’s life and his family, Kate learns that the success what she believes in is not as satisfied as she expected before. The people who are successful in the common acceptable concept of success have many problems such as the disagreement between partners and academic dishonesty in their life. For example, Daniel’s parents always dispute with each other in front of other people, the colleague “conducted a highly unprofessional piece of research” (149). However, Daniel’s attitude towards this kind of situations sometime really astonishes Kate. Kate considers “Daniel is naive in some ways,”(149) and Daniel thinks Kate always take everything so seriously. The conflicts between the two lovers are the way to deal with people and the attitudes to life are so different. To make efforts of reconciling the conflicts, Kate feels painful. But this is the course of rediscovering and readjusting herself.

Sharon 's biological father was horrid to her throughout her childhood. Sharon often refuses to make any mention to her biological father, but those she have been terrible. Sharon’s father would never be in her children’s life, but the impacts he had on her are still present in her life today. Sharon’s mother, Marilyn, has worked very hard to keep her family together. Marilyn has always been a caring woman with a full heart. Marilyn is the storyteller of the family with her grandchildren being her primary source material. Sharon is a mix of the good and bad in her life. Together Jayson’s mother and father have shaped who he is and how he see’s the world much how their ancestors before them have.

For example, when Mama spends Saturday evening counting the money that Papa has brought home and divvying it among their bills, the kids are always as relieved as Mama that they don’t have to go to the bank. Only later did we find out that there was never a bank, but Mama didn’t want to unnecessarily worry her children. They were, after all, only children. Mama was always willing to do anything to make her children happy, including selling the brooch that was her mother’s in order to get Katrin the dresser set that she had been eyeing for her graduation gift. When Christine told Katrin, it was Christine that was admonished – Mama, again, didn’t want to worry her children. Finally, when Aunt Trina came to tell Mama about wanting to marry Mr. Thorkelson, Mama took matters into her own hands because Aunt Trina was afraid her sisters would laugh at her. Mama threatened to tell her sisters’ secrets rather than let her timid sister be laughed at.