A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Literary Device)

"The one tree in Francie's yard was neither a pine nor a hemlock. It had pointed leaves which grew along green switches which radiated from the bough and made a tree which looked like a lot of opened green umbrellas. Some people called it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree which struggled to reach the sky. It grew in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps and it was the only tree that grew out of cement. It grew lushly, but only in the tenement districts." (6) The tree against all odds grows in the middle of concrete with pollution surrounding it and yet it stills survives just as Francie survives all the odds. The fact that the author had this as the begins of the book shows how symbolic the tree is through out the book. As the tree grows, Francie grows, and so the tree is the symbol of Francie surviving the odds such as the fact that Francie's father was an alcoholic. Francie's growth as a person is a theme throughout this novel, and the tree mirrors this.