Final Response to Tree Grows in Brooklyn

When you are young you look out onto the vast world wondering what will become of you. As you age this longing dwindles and there is nothing left to wonder. You question your existence everyday. You feel as if you've been everywhere and nowhere. The path from innocence to experience is a twisted and complicated one, but for us to do anything significant, with our seemingly insignificant life, we must embrace it.

When anybody gets the initiative to do something no matter the odds they can accomplish it. Like Francie and Neeley with the huge Christmas tree. Francie decided that she wanted that tree and she would do as much as she could to get even if it meant making sacrifices in the form of Neeley's face. That is just about as deep of a symbol as there is, because the face represents you and your soul, so this scene is actually showing that sometimes to get what we want it may mean damaging our self or others irreparably.

Johnny also damages himself by letting his alcoholism get the better of him and it leads to his premature death. That is a terrible fate, for then you are unable to complete your true duty for your short existence on earth. He was a great person, pulling through in the most difficult times, but barely making it through in the good times is not a way to live. It makes you live on edge for your entire life leaving you no time to relax and sort out your priorities. You just fall into an unbreakable cycle of falling into your parents footsteps, then your child or children will fall into yours until the need for that profession is nonexistent leaving them in the street begging. Even if you just get a little bit better and your kids do the same they will have a prosperous life if the correct choices are made.

Betty Smith had a very interesting spin on this book by letting the characters more real. She made most of them have two or more personalities. Everybody had a pure side and one were they would make the worst life possible for themselves. In most books there is a clear definite line. On one side good the other evil. In this book it seems as if everybody is straddling it.

Even though the path to experience is a long and strenuous one. Through it we shape who we are and what we want to accomplish, for better or for worse, but it is only us who shape it making the choices we make even if they aren't the easy ones. Most people in their old age they look back on their life and see what they did wrong and what they want to fix, but they only see those mistakes now after they have spent their whole life learning.