A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Aunt Evy Rommely is one of Katie Nolan's sisters and a familiar comic figure in Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. While sister Sissy embodies romantic impulsiveness and Mary Rommely carries the weight of Old World seriousness, Evy strikes a balance with her sharp wit and working-class practicality, all mixed with a sense of humor. She's married to a horse-car driver, which Smith uses to firmly place Evy in the tough economic landscape of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at the dawn of the twentieth century.

Evy primarily serves as the wisecracking, unsentimental aunt who is always there when family solidarity is needed. She takes part in the Rommely sisters' gatherings—those kitchen-table meetings where the women come together to tackle issues of poverty, relationships, and survival—and her dry remarks cut through sentimentality without being harsh. Her humor often pokes fun at the quirks of husbands and neighbors, showcasing a woman who has embraced her struggles with laughter.

Her character remains fairly consistent; she doesn’t experience the transformative growth that Francie or Katie do. Instead, she acts as a stabilizing comedic presence and evidence that the Rommely women, despite their different personalities, share a strong loyalty to one another. Evy reinforces the novel’s core theme that community and female kinship are the true roots that help people—like the resilient ailanthus tree—thrive in harsh conditions. Her presence serves as a reminder that survival in Brooklyn isn’t always a tragedy; sometimes it’s just plain funny.

Aunt Sissy Rommely stands out as one of the most vibrant and life-affirming characters in Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. As the youngest and most unconventional of the Rommely sisters, Sissy balances the novel's challenges with her warmth, sensuality, and an unquenchable zest for life. She's been married several times—always to men she simply refers to as "John"—and her series of relationships raises eyebrows in respectable Brooklyn society, while making her a favorite among the Nolan children, particularly Francie.

Sissy's journey evolves from a carefree, almost reckless spirit to a more grounded maturity. Her deepest sorrow lies in her struggle to carry a baby to term, as she endures several stillbirths that quietly shadow her vivacity. This sorrow shifts when she seeks medical assistance—defying societal taboos of her time—and ultimately gives birth to a healthy child. This moment transforms her: she embraces a stable marriage with her "new John" and pours her immense capacity for love into motherhood.

Sissy's character is marked by her openness about sex and the body, her generosity—often helping the Nolans through financial and emotional struggles—and her defiance against societal shame. She is the only adult who speaks to Francie candidly about the complexities of growing up. Her scenes are filled with humor and tenderness, serving thematically as a reminder that joy and resilience can coexist with loss—reflecting the novel's central symbol of the resilient tree.

Ben Blake is a secondary yet significant character in Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, appearing during Francie Nolan's teenage years as her first serious love interest. An earnest and ambitious young man from the neighborhood, Ben symbolizes the intellectual aspirations that Francie yearns for. They connect over their mutual love for reading and learning, and their relationship gives Francie a rare feeling of being truly recognized and understood beyond her immediate family.

Ben is depicted as sincere and kind—he treats Francie with genuine respect at a time when she is starting to understand her identity as a young woman. Their courtship is tender but ultimately limited; it never evolves into a lasting commitment, primarily because both are still discovering their paths in life. When Ben eventually drifts away—attracted to new opportunities and relationships—Francie feels a quiet yet genuine heartbreak, marking a crucial step in her emotional growth.

As a character, Ben serves as a contrast to the more impulsive Lee Rhynor, who comes after him in Francie's romantic journey and inflicts a deeper emotional wound. Ben's kindness sets a standard for what healthy affection can look like. His role is brief but significant: he helps Francie recognize her own value, even as his departure teaches her that love and loss go hand in hand. He embodies the bittersweet promise of youth against the backdrop of Brooklyn in the novel.

Cornelius "Neeley" Nolan is Francie's younger brother and the second child of Johnny and Katie Nolan. They grow up together in the tenements of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, during the early twentieth century. While both siblings experience poverty and share the same loving yet flawed family, Neeley's journey is quite different from Francie's. Unlike her introspective and literary nature, Neeley is sociable, easygoing, and naturally charming—qualities he clearly inherits from their father, Johnny.

Neeley is openly favored by Katie, a preference that becomes painfully clear when the family can only afford to send one child to a better school, and Katie chooses him over the more academically gifted Francie. This choice wounds Francie deeply, but it reflects Katie's practical belief that a son's opportunities—and the family's survival—are paramount. Neeley accepts his mother's affection without any apparent guilt, largely unaware of the sacrifice his sister endures.

Following Johnny's death, Neeley takes on a quiet role as the family's male anchor, picking up odd jobs to help support them. He is portrayed as fundamentally decent but lacking ambition, content to navigate life relying on his warmth and likability rather than a strong drive. By the end of the novel, he is on a path toward a stable, ordinary future—this stands in stark contrast to Francie's fierce intellectual hunger. Rather than functioning as a fully developed protagonist, Neeley serves as a mirror: his effortless acceptance in the world highlights the struggles Francie faces in carving out her own place.

Flossie Gaddis is a minor yet thematically significant character in Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. She serves as a cautionary figure within the same Williamsburg tenement world as the Nolans. As the daughter of the Gaddis family and sister to Henny Gaddis, her story highlights the limited and often dangerous paths available to young working-class women in early twentieth-century Brooklyn.

Flossie is introduced as a girl who dreams of glamour and escape, adorning herself with cheap trinkets and projecting a flirtatious sophistication that exceeds her years and means. While Francie Nolan channels her desires into books and imagination, Flossie focuses on her appearance and attracting male attention. She becomes a "ten-cent-a-dance" girl, a taxi dancer whose job places her on the fringes of respectability in the eyes of the neighborhood. Her journey is one of gradual, quiet decline—she ages prematurely, her beauty fading under the weight of her lifestyle, and she never finds the escape she longs for.

Flossie acts as a foil to Francie: both are shaped by poverty and desire, but education and inner strength provide Francie with choices that Flossie does not explore. Flossie's fate subtly reinforces the novel's message that literacy and self-improvement are essential lifelines, not mere luxuries. Her presence in the tenement world serves as a reminder of how thin the line is between ambition and downfall for girls lacking economic or intellectual resources.

Francie Nolan is the main character and voice of the novel, a sensitive and imaginative girl growing up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, during the early 1900s. With a father who works as a singing waiter and a mother who cleans tenements, she faces the harsh realities of poverty while hungering for knowledge. From the very first scene—where Francie sits in the tree of heaven outside her apartment, reading and enjoying candy—Betty Smith portrays her as a dreamer who turns hardship into something rich within.

Francie's journey takes her from a sheltered and wonder-filled childhood to a series of harsh realizations. She faces the humiliation of a teacher who refuses to appreciate her writing because it speaks of poverty instead of beauty, yet she continues to write, eventually earning the teacher's reluctant respect. A near-assault by a neighborhood predator shatters her feeling of safety, and her father's descent into alcoholism and early death from pneumonia thrust her into adulthood too soon. She leaves school to work in a factory, sacrificing her own education so that her brother Neeley can continue his studies—this quiet act of selflessness highlights her generous nature.

Her romantic disappointment with Lee Rhynor, who writes to tell her he’s engaged to someone else while she still has feelings for him, forces her to grow up even more. By the end of the novel, she is preparing to go to college, having fought hard for the future her father always believed she deserved. Francie's defining traits include her insatiable reading, her ability to see beauty in overlooked places, and her resilience—much like the tree of heaven itself, she thrives stubbornly in unlikely circumstances.

Johnny Nolan is the charming and dreamy father at the center of Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but his story is ultimately tragic. A singing waiter who checks in with Garney's agency every Saturday hoping for weekend gigs, Johnny is cherished for his warmth, storytelling ability, and the tender rituals he shares with his family. His Saturday-night walks with Francie and Neeley to sell the week's rags and tin are particularly memorable, along with his habit of reading Shakespeare and the Bible aloud. He possesses genuine poetic sensitivity and a deep capacity for love but struggles to provide the consistent stability his family needs.

Johnny's main flaw is his struggle with alcoholism. He often drinks away his wages, misses work, and falls into deep self-loathing that he can't seem to escape. His story is one of slow, heartbreaking decline; by the time Katie is pregnant with their third child, his health is noticeably deteriorating. He succumbs to pneumonia and alcohol-related illness before Annie Laurie is born, leaving his family in poverty. However, Smith never depicts him as a villain. His death scene, where he is found collapsed in the snow while trying to get home, highlights both his failures and his enduring love.

Johnny’s lasting impact is the imaginative and aspirational spirit he instills in Francie. He supports her writing, defends her sensitivity, and insists that she attend a better school—actions that profoundly influence her future. He becomes the romantic ideal against which Francie measures every man she encounters throughout her life.

Katie Nolan (née Rommely) is the moral and practical backbone of the Nolan family in Betty Smith's semi-autobiographical novel set in early twentieth-century Williamsburg, Brooklyn. As a janitress working to secure the family’s tenement apartment, Katie scrubs floors and hauls garbage while her husband Johnny charms those around him but struggles to provide consistently. Her role is defined by a tough pragmatism shaped by poverty: she stretches every penny into the tin-can bank, insists that the children alternate between school and work, and makes the difficult choice to keep Neeley in school while pulling Francie out—a decision that highlights her unsentimental realism and complex favoritism toward her son.

Katie's journey shifts from an embattled young wife to a widowed matriarch and then to a cautious optimist. When Johnny dies from pneumonia and alcoholism, she is pregnant with Laurie, yet she does not fall apart; instead, she gathers every resource, takes in a boarder, and guides the family through the brink of the Depression. Her emotional guardedness—she seldom expresses affection for Francie in the same way she does for Neeley—creates a wound that the novel explores deeply, rooted in her own mother Mary Rommely's Old World stoicism.

By the end of the novel, Katie's acceptance of Officer McShane's marriage proposal signifies a hard-earned softening: she allows herself the possibility of security and maybe even happiness. While she may not fit the mold of a warm mother, she is undeniably a fiercely capable one—a woman who survives by transforming love into hard work.

Lee Rhynor is a young soldier whom Francie Nolan meets and falls for during World War I, playing a crucial role in her coming-of-age journey. He is charming, attentive, and seemingly sincere, intensely courting Francie during a brief but emotionally charged period before he deploys. He writes her tender letters, making her feel genuinely desired and romantically appreciated for the first time—a thrilling experience for a girl who has often felt overlooked. However, Lee's true character comes to light when Francie learns he is engaged to another girl back home. He had been sending the same romantic letters to multiple young women at once, using the war and his upcoming deployment as emotional leverage. This betrayal marks a turning point in Francie's growth: it shatters her romantic idealism and forces her to confront adult disillusionment. Instead of being crushed by the experience, Francie processes the heartbreak with increasing resilience, turning it into self-awareness. Lee serves less as a fully fleshed-out character and more as a narrative device—a cautionary figure whose deceit hastens Francie's shift from girlhood fantasy to a clear-eyed young womanhood. His arc is brief and intentionally superficial, reflecting the lack of depth behind his romantic facade. Through Lee, Betty Smith highlights a recurring theme in the novel: that survival and personal growth often involve navigating the disappointments of those who let you down the most.

Mary Rommely is Katie Nolan's immigrant mother and the quiet moral and spiritual anchor for the Nolan family in Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Originally from Austria, she came to America without knowing English, bringing with her the deep folk wisdom of her homeland. Although she appears in only a few scenes, her influence resonates throughout the novel. Her most significant moment occurs early on when she visits Katie after Francie's birth and delivers a solemn charge: she urges Katie to read to her children every night from the Bible and Shakespeare, ensuring that even the poorest child grows up surrounded by beauty and language. This directive profoundly shapes Francie's inner life and love for literature.

Mary is devout, stoic, and pragmatic—traits common among women who have faced real hardship. She sees suffering not as an injustice but as part of the human experience, and she shares this outlook with Katie, who in turn instills a resilient spirit in Francie. Mary also accepts her daughter Sissy's flamboyant and rebellious nature, hinting at a deeper compassion beneath her stern demeanor.

Her story is less about personal growth and more about a generational legacy: she is the foundation from which the Rommely-Nolan tree flourishes. By the novel's conclusion, her advice regarding books and resilience has proven to be prophetic—Francie rises above poverty thanks to the literacy and imagination that Mary emphasized. Thus, Mary Rommely serves as the symbolic matriarch of the novel, representing the immigrant dream boiled down to its essence: to give your children more than you had.

Miss Gardner is Francie Nolan's teacher at the Williamsburg school and stands as a sharp symbol of institutional cruelty and class prejudice in the novel. She leaves a memorable impression in scenes where she visibly recoils from Francie, wrinkling her nose at the child's worn clothes and unwashed smell—this reaction inflicts a lasting wound on Francie's self-worth. Instead of nurturing her brightest student, Miss Gardner exemplifies how public institutions can stifle the very children they are supposed to support. She targets poorer students for subtle humiliation, viewing their poverty as a moral failing rather than a social circumstance.

Miss Gardner's journey is less about personal growth and more about structural impact: she serves to ignite Francie's fierce internal resolve. After facing Miss Gardner's disdain, Francie doesn't crumble; instead, she becomes quietly determined to prove her worth—a pivotal moment that enhances her connection to literature and learning as private sanctuaries. The teacher's coldness also sharpens Francie's awareness of hypocrisy among authority figures, a theme that Betty Smith weaves throughout the novel.

Key traits include professional rigidity, class snobbery, and a complete lack of empathy. She isn’t a villain in a traditional sense but something more realistic and, therefore, more harmful: a mediocre gatekeeper who equates cleanliness with character. Her brief yet damaging presence highlights the novel's message that surviving in Brooklyn requires children like Francie to find dignity in spite of, not because of, the adults responsible for their care.

Officer McShane is a reliable and dignified beat cop from Brooklyn whose role in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn goes far beyond just enforcing the law. A widower for several years, he is well-known and respected in the Williamsburg neighborhood he patrols, bringing a sense of stability and hope for upward mobility to the Nolan family. McShane is marked by his patience, decency, and genuine care—traits that contrast sharply with the romantic yet unreliable Johnny Nolan. His pursuit of Katie Nolan is subtle and respectful; he doesn't pressure her while she's mourning Johnny's death, instead revealing his intentions gradually and honorably. When he finally proposes and Katie says yes, it signifies a turning point in the story: the Nolans may finally leave behind their relentless poverty. McShane also shows kindness toward the children—he helps Neeley secure a sought-after spot, and his willingness to accept Francie and Neeley as part of marrying Katie speaks to his integrity. Though not a flashy or deeply developed character, he symbolizes the kind of earned security that Betty Smith suggests might be more sustaining than passion. His journey is fundamentally about patient devotion being rewarded, and he grounds the novel's hopeful, forward-looking ending.

In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith presents education not as just a formal system but as a vital survival instinct passed down through family and sacrifice. The core theme of the novel is the Rommely family's unspoken agreement: Mary Rommely tells her daughter Katie that children should be given two essential gifts — the Bible and Shakespeare — to ensure they inherit a full spectrum of human experience before life starts to limit them. This belief influences the entire Nolan household, where Francie and Neeley are read to each night from both texts, absorbing rhythm and moral nuance long before they can articulate what they are learning.

Francie's bond with the Brooklyn Public Library takes on a nearly sacred quality. She methodically reads through every book alphabetically, viewing the library as a personal realm she can enter and leave as she wishes — a rare refuge where her poverty feels invisible. Her Saturday routine of picking a book and reading on the fire escape with candy by her side stands out as one of the novel's most vivid snapshots of joy that she creates for herself.

The clash between formal education and personal learning becomes more pronounced when Francie's teacher dismisses her raw, honest writings about life in Williamsburg, insisting on more refined topics. Instead of giving in completely, Francie learns to gauge her audience while quietly maintaining her own perspective — an early lesson in the politics of knowledge and what experiences are deemed worthy of literature.

Johnny's death deepens Francie's education in a more challenging way: she must grapple with grief, economic instability, and the compromises of adulthood all at once. By the time she graduates high school and sets her sights on college, the diploma itself matters less than the rich, self-directed knowledge she has already gained.

In Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, family functions more as a channel for hardship than as a refuge. The Nolan household is held together by contradictions: Katie is the practical, sometimes emotionally distant anchor, while Johnny is the warm, singing dreamer whose alcoholism gradually undermines the family's stability. Francie absorbs traits from both parents—she inherits Johnny's romantic imagination and Katie's strong will—and the novel explores how these conflicting qualities interact within her as she matures.

The penny-a-day tin-can bank that Katie establishes stands out as one of the novel's key family motifs. It goes beyond just being a savings practice; it's a ritual of shared survival, teaching children that the future is built together, coin by coin, even when the present is difficult. When the can is finally opened, the act carries the significance of years of shared discipline.

Johnny's death completely reshapes the family's dynamic. Instead of breaking the Nolans apart, his absence leads to a renegotiation of roles: Francie steps into early adulthood, Neeley benefits from Katie's fierce favoritism, and Aunt Sissy's recurring presence serves as a reminder that family extends outward into a messy, nurturing network of women. Sissy herself—scandalous, generous, and always reinventing herself—embodies the family's ability to be resilient outside of conventional norms.

The novel's closing image, with Francie watching a new child read on the fire escape just as she once did, frames family as a cycle of witness and inheritance rather than a fixed unit, constantly evolving into the next generation.

In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith depicts growing up as a gradual, often painful journey filled with disillusionment and resilience, symbolized by the ailanthus tree that breaks through the concrete in the Nolan family's Williamsburg neighborhood. This tree thrives against all odds — much like Francie Nolan, who endures poverty, hunger, and loss without being defeated by them.

Francie's Saturday routine of sitting on the fire escape with a book and a bag of candy — her own little haven — highlights that for her, growing up means finding inner wealth where material comfort is lacking. When she learns that her cherished teacher looks down on the tenement children with disdain instead of compassion, the betrayal doesn’t shatter her spirit; instead, she quietly decides to write about "true" things, marking a transition from childhood naivety to a more realistic and honest understanding of the world.

The death of her father Johnny represents a critical turning point in the novel. Francie is forced to give up her high school aspirations and take a factory job, compressing her adolescence into a single economic choice. However, Smith doesn’t present this as purely tragic: Francie studies at night, working her way back toward education, and Johnny's loss ultimately sharpens rather than diminishes her sense of identity.

The motif of the penny-a-day tin bank — where savings grow slowly, coin by coin — serves as a metaphor for growing up itself: just as money accumulates gradually, so does identity, formed through small acts of determination that reveal their true significance only in hindsight.

In Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, identity isn't something Francie Nolan simply inherits; it's actively shaped by her as she navigates poverty, neighborhood expectations, and family myths. The novel's key symbol — the ailanthus tree that pushes through concrete in the Williamsburg tenement yard — reflects Francie's determination not to be limited by her circumstances; the tree is described as belonging to "people like her," rooting identity in resilience rather than mere origins.

Francie's self-perception is influenced by conflicting loyalties. She admires her charming, unreliable father Johnny, picking up his storytelling talent and romantic vision, while also absorbing her mother Katie's steadfast pragmatism. These two influences tug her in different directions throughout the story, and her gradual blending of them — learning to dream without being crushed by those dreams — signifies her coming-of-age.

The public library becomes a crucial space for Francie's self-creation. Her methodical plan to read every book in alphabetical order is less about education and more about claiming a personal inner life that the tenement world can't reach. Likewise, her determination to attend a better school outside her district — accomplished through a small, intentional deception — shows that she sees identity as something to be chosen and performed, rather than simply given.

Her relationship with her Irish-immigrant heritage is also complex. She notices how neighbors simplify themselves into ethnic stereotypes for social acceptance, and she quietly resists this reduction. By the end of the novel, as she prepares to leave Brooklyn for college, Francie gazes back at the ailanthus tree — now cut down yet already sprouting again — affirming that identity, like the tree, endures despite efforts to erase it.

In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith explores loss not as a sudden break but as a gradual, layered experience that affects each member of the Nolan family in unique ways. The most significant grief in the novel is the death of Johnny Nolan, whose struggles with alcoholism and romantic ideals have already created a sense of absence in his life before his death. When he passes away from pneumonia, Francie feels his loss in two ways — first, as the father who was often lost in song and whiskey, and then as the stark reality of the empty chair left behind. Smith avoids sentimentality: Francie's mourning is intertwined with anger at his weaknesses and guilt for feeling that anger, presenting a psychological depth that is uncommon in coming-of-age stories from that time.

Katie's grief is handled quite differently. She nearly suppresses it right away, redirecting her sorrow into the practical tasks of survival — figuring out coal expenses and negotiating with creditors — making her mourning an unseen effort. This contrast between Francie's openly expressed loss and Katie's stoic endurance becomes one of the novel's key tensions.

Alongside Johnny's death, smaller losses build up: the loss of childhood innocence as Francie witnesses local violence, the loss of their Williamsburg tenement when the family moves, and the loss of the scholarship Francie feels she has earned. Each disappointment is depicted with equal care, implying that grief extends beyond death and is a cost paid by anyone who loves something transient. The ailanthus tree — tough but rooted in hardship — quietly symbolizes this reality throughout the story, thriving specifically because it has learned to endure loss.

In Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, resilience isn't portrayed as a triumphant quality but rather a quiet, grinding necessity—best represented by the ailanthus tree that pushes its way up through the concrete in the Nolan family's Williamsburg neighborhood. The tree is introduced early on as something that "grows in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps," thriving precisely because no one tends it. It becomes the novel's central motif: survival isn't about having ideal conditions but about persisting in spite of them.

Francie Nolan learns this lesson from childhood. When she's denied entry to a better school outside her district, she creatively fabricates a false address and enrolls anyway—a small, determined act of self-invention that costs her nothing except the willingness to lie for her own future. Her Saturday ritual of sitting in the fire escape tree with a book and a bag of candy mirrors this resilience in its ordinariness: she carves out private joy from poverty instead of waiting for her circumstances to improve.

Johnny Nolan's alcoholism repeatedly disrupts the family's stability, yet Katie Nolan navigates each crisis by scrubbing floors, stretching pennies, and refusing to indulge in sentimentality about her situation. When Johnny dies before Francie graduates, the grief is genuine but not debilitating—Katie remarries out of practicality, and Francie postpones college to work, gradually earning her way back toward education.

Resilience in the novel also spans generations: Katie's own mother, Mary Rommely, advises that a child must learn to read to transcend suffering through imagination. The library card, the penny bank, the tin-can savings—each small ritual represents an act of structural resilience intentionally passed down from one generation to the next.

In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith presents the American Dream not as a shiny endpoint but as a difficult, ongoing struggle — something the Nolans gradually pursue through sacrifice rather than simply obtain through opportunity.

The novel's main symbol highlights this tension right away: the ailanthus tree that breaks through concrete in the yard of a Williamsburg tenement. It thrives in soil where survival seems impossible, and Smith makes a clear connection to the immigrant poor who manage to do the same. The tree doesn’t flourish; it endures, representing a more realistic interpretation of the Dream that the book conveys.

Johnny Nolan personifies the alluring yet destructive aspects of the Dream. He has a beautiful singing voice, wins people over with his charm, and truly believes in possibilities, but his alcoholism keeps the family trapped in ongoing poverty. His death midway through the novel shatters the romantic idea that simply wanting something badly enough is enough.

Katie Nolan serves as the Dream's practical driving force. She cleans floors, saves pennies in a tin-can bank hidden in the closet, and makes her children read one page of Shakespeare and one of the Bible each night — a makeshift curriculum aimed at creating the cultural capital that their tenement life denies them.

Francie's journey represents the Dream made tangible. She is turned away from a better school because of her address, yet she finds a way to enroll regardless. By the time she leaves for college at the novel's end, it feels less like a victory and more like a departure — she becomes the first Nolan to break free from the pull of Williamsburg, but Smith carefully illustrates the sacrifices involved: the loss of childhood, the deceased father, the mother's weary hands. The Dream, Smith emphasizes, always comes at a cost to the generation that doesn't quite achieve it.