A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Society and Class Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #1

The stable was finer than any house in the neighborhood and the yard was the prettiest in Williamsburg. (2.27)

Things must be pretty bad when the best house around belongs to animals.

Quote #2

Mr. Tomony who owned the pawn shop came home in a hansom cab from his spendthrift evening in New York […] Some day she would go across Williamsburg Bridge […] and find her way uptown in New York to where these fine places were and take a good look at the outside (6.56-58).

Mr. Tomony, oddball or not, exposes Francie to a different lifestyle. Not everyone is poor, so maybe she doesn’t have to be, either.

Quote #3

She pointed to a swarm of dirty children playing in the gutter. “You could take any one of them and wash him good and dress him up and sit him in a fine house and you would think he was beautiful.” (10.37)

Katie believes there are no real differences among the classes. Scrub up a dirty kid, and bam—you’d never know she was poor.