The life and work of Betty Smith, author of "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn".
Item
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Title
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The life and work of Betty Smith, author of "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn".
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Identifier
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AAI9521285
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identifier
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9521285
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Creator
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Johnson, Carol Siri.
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Contributor
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Adviser: W. Speed Hill
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Date
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1995
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, American | American Studies | Women's Studies | Biography
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Abstract
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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is an American classic. When it first appeared in 1943 it was an immediate bestseller, and it has since become an icon of our cultural consciousness, a symbol of the American Dream. Even now echoes of the title are heard in headlines across the country; many people remember the story of Francie, who grew, like the tree, in the tenements of Williamsburg. Nevertheless, so little is known about the author that she is included in an anthology of Irish American writers even though she is of German-Austrian descent; few people know that she wrote three other novels and over seventy plays. Smith wove stories about herself all of her life, but her first novel became a public myth.;When A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was published, it was a cultural phenomena: it was widely regarded as the best novel of 1943, it was read by thousands, it caused the Armed Services Edition to go into a second printing for the first time, and it was the first American novel to be translated behind the iron curtain. Recent critical history has not been so kind to Smith: she is now labelled "sentimental" or a "woman's writer." Smith was sometimes sentimental, and she was a woman, but A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is, at base, an empowering representation of the immigrant and working-class myth, written for women and men, young and old. Smith was unashamed of her working-class brutality and sentiment; A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a bildungsroman of the American Dream.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
