While there have been several books in our book club that I haven’t been thrilled about reading, I admit I was pretty excited to read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. It’s not a book I’d read before, but I am a sucker for a good coming of age novel. I’ve always been intrigued by the early 1900s so I was interested in delving more deeply into that era with a good piece of fiction.
As I read about Francie in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943) I was frequently reminded of one of my other favorite literary young ladies – Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird (1960). I found Scout and Francie to be similar and a true joy to get to know. When Francie was reading on her balcony looking out onto the street, I was right there with her sweating in the summer heat. And when Scout was poking around Boo Radley’s yard, I could not help but worry that Boo would catch me as well. But more than that, I found them both extremely sensitive to their environments and having strong sense of justice and humanism. They took the moral high ground not out of obligation, but out of practicality – it’s what made most sense to them.
Both books take place at a time of tumult in American society. Brooklyn takes place in a poor community in the later stages of the Industrial Revolution on the eve World War 1 during a time when many people were unable to find a job and a living wage. Mockingbird is set in Alabama just after the Great Depression and illustrates the deep roots of racism and intolerance in a small town. No child is oblivious to the tension in either case, but Scout and Francie are especially perceptive to what is going on around them even through the purview of a child. They go from thinking about playing outside and school work to looking deeply into the heart of poverty, intolerance and other complex societal norms.
In chapter 30 of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Francie witnesses a terrible scene where several neighborhood women taunt a young woman who is taking her child out for an afternoon stroll because the child was born out of wedlock and has no father. In their opinion, she should not take the bastard child out into the daylight. The mother of the child, Joanna, tries to defend herself while the women call her a whore. As the scene escalates, one of the women throws a stone at Joanna which hits the baby instead. The baby immediately begins to bleed and cry. Joanna quietly retreats with her baby into her home.
Francie, who was nearby and a spectator of this event, becomes distraught of the hatefulness that exists between the women and worries she’ll be the same someday. She notes the hypocrisy when she remembers that one of the women involved in the taunting had become pregnant before she was married (though married before it was born). Francie could not understand why Joanna was tormented for a similar crime. Francie, being both perceptive and devastated, simply decides that women must be enemies despite their obvious bonds.
"Most women had the one thing in common: they had great pain when they gave birth to their children. This should make a bond that held them all together; it should make them love and protect each other against the man-world. But it was not so. It seemed like their great birth pains shrank their hearts and their souls. They stuck together for only one thing: to trample on some other woman." – Francie
In To Kill A Mockingbird (Chapter 23), when Tom Robinson, a black man wrongly convicted of raping a poor white girl under circumstantial evidence, is declared guilty, Scout and her brother Jem try to understand the complex nature of people and the way they behave. In her mind the evidence was clear – Tom Robinson did not rape Mayella Ewell – so how did Tom Robinson get convicted of this crime? How can the jury, how can “folks” do this? While Scout seems to understand the prejudice against blacks that exists she still cannot comprehend how anyone could convict a black man under such untenable evidence.
After speaking with their father, Scout and Jem get into a conversation about folks. What kind of folks are there? Why is it appropriate to affiliate with some folks and not others? Why are they against some folks and for others?Jem decides there are four types of folks in Maycomb country, “there’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there’s the kinds like the Cunninghams out in the woods, there’s the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the Negroes”.
Scout, keenly understanding that people have no control of the circumstances of their birth and believing all people have a chance to learn and grow, simply responds, “I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.”
These sorts of similarities pervade the books. Both young girls existed in a tumultuous environment and provided a conscience and social commentary for the time they were set. Their humanistic qualities and strong sense of justice were wise and prescient of things to come. While I recognize that these characters were written by women much older and more aware than a young person of eleven, I can’t help but think of Francie and Scout as unique individuals and wish there was a way they could been friends.
What are your thoughts? Are Francie and Scout right in their ideas and conclusions? Or, are they characters written by lefty authors to demonstrate their opinions on how things should be? And finally, are their ideas about right and wrong considered correct today?
Written by Amanda Patrick
What are your thoughts? Are Francie and Scout right in their ideas and conclusions? Or, are they characters written by lefty authors to demonstrate their opinions on how things should be? And finally, are their ideas about right and wrong considered correct today?
Written by Amanda Patrick
No comments:
Post a Comment