Tree Grows In Brooklyn

311 Words2 Pages
The setting of the bildungsroman novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith demonstrates the tremendous and continuous struggle of women’s rights and complications, poverty, and child labor. It opens by describing a tree, known as the Tree of Heaven, in Francie’s neighborhood in Williamsburg. The time period in which this novel takes place is in the early 1900s. This is shortly before the beginning of World War I and a time of gradual progression for women’s rights and suffrage. Katie, Francie’s mother, strongly depicts an independent heroine of that time, since she was working all throughout Francie’s childhood. However, most of the women were housewives, limited by their gender roles. Women of all socioeconomic backgrounds relate by the