A Tree Grows in Brooklyn--final paper

You walk up the street watching all the children playing with their jump ropes, basketball, baseball, or hide-and-go-seek with a friend. You envy all of them. You cannot afford any of those things, not even a friend to play with, since you envy everyone. In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Francie Nolan feels the same way in the early years of her life, then she understands her situation better and is grateful of what she has. Even though Francie's family is living in poverty she learns that you don't need everything to be happy.

Francie Nolan is a girl growing up in the early 1900s. Finding a job and earning money was difficult for Nolans’. As Francie moves from innocence to experience she learns that family matters more than all the money in the world. When Francie’s dad dies their money becomes even more limited. Francie’s mother can not keep working like she is, since she is going to bear another child, her third. Francie needs to find work and soon enough finds a high paying job. The Nolans’ are rich. Francie changes, she now expects they can afford everything, but when she looses her job she learns that even when you are rich you can’t have everything. Francie now has to get another job or go to high school.

Not having the toys or clothes you want isn’t the end of the world. If your life is to boring without those things, then add your own personal touch to them. Add homemade accessories to your clothes, and make up your own games with the toys you have, do anything to make yourself happy about what you have. Happiness can happen anytime as long as you have family. Family is something Francie learns about in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. She learns that she is happy even though she has no toys, pretty dresses, or a party for every holiday. Francie learns not to care that they are poor, but instead, to think of themselves as lucky to have food on the table, each other, and their life.

Now little girls and boys,still, may think of themselves as poor because they don’t have what other people have. They still have to learn that they are lucky to be alive. Girls may want every clothing item on the market, but they can’t. Boys may want all the action figures they can fit into their rooms, but they can’t have all that. People can’t be wealthy all the time in their life, otherwise they would grow up to be greedy, always thinking that they will get what ever they want when they want it. Poorer people know how to sacrifice, and will earn what they want if they grow up to be polite, giving, and grateful.