“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” by Betty Smith (post 1): Francie and her father have alternate personalities, but multiple personality, per se, is unintentional

At the beginning of this semi-autobiographical novel (1), Francie Nolan, a preadolescent girl, is a loner. Other children think that she and her family are peculiar. Her mother reads her one page of Shakespeare and one page of the Bible every day, which sometimes affects Francie’s vocabulary. Her Aunt Sissy’s flirty behavior distracts men and upsets women in the neighborhood. And her father, who drinks, works as a singing waiter, irregularly.

Francie

“So in the warm summer days the lonesome child sat on her stoop and pretended disdain for the group of children playing on the sidewalk. Francie played with imaginary companions and made believe that they were better than real children…

“Francie played jacks by herself, first being Francie and then her opponent. She’d talk to the imaginary player. ‘I’m for threesies and you’re for twosies,’ she’d say” (2, pp. 110-112).

“What are you thinking about, little girl?”

“Just thinking,” Francie said.

“Sometimes I see you sitting on the gutter curb for hours. What do you think of then?”

“Nothing. I just tell myself stories.”

Miss Tynmore pointed at her sternly. “Little girl, you’ll be a story writer when you grow up.” It was a command rather than a statement.

“Yes, ma’am,” agreed Francie out of politeness” (2, p. 141).

Her Father

“When he was drunk, he was a quiet man. He didn’t brawl, he didn’t sing, he didn’t grow sentimental. He grew thoughtful. People who didn’t know him thought that he was drunk when he was sober, because sober, he was full of song and excitement. When he was drunk, strangers looked on him as a quiet, thoughtful man who minded his own business.

“Francie dreaded the drinking periods—not on moral grounds but because Papa wasn’t a man she knew then. He wouldn’t talk to her or to anybody. He looked at her with the eyes of a stranger. When Mama spoke to him, he turned his head away from her.

“When he got over a drinking time, he’d take a notion that he had to be a better father to his children” (2, p. 190).

Comment

Francie, aside from playing with imaginary companions (a normal, childhood version of multiple personality), tells herself stories. Note how that is phrased. She doesn’t say that she thinks of stories, but that she tells herself stories. The latter implies two personalities, one who is telling the story and one who is listening to it.

Regarding her father, note that “Papa wasn’t a man she knew then…He looked at her with the eyes of a stranger.” That implies his having an alternate personality that didn’t relate to her. Indeed, he appears to have three personalities: the singing waiter, the drunk stranger, and the attentive father.

1. Wikipedia. “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (novel).” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tree_Grows_in_Brooklyn_(novel)

2. Betty Smith. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn [1943]. New York, Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006.