Loss of Innocence in Francie Nolan Essay Example

or she won't be allowed to start school. Katie decides not to go with them to not miss work.

Before leaving, Francie and Neeley go outside to make mud pies, and forget to wash as Katie told them to. When she walks in to the doctor's room, he looks at Francie's dark-brown arm and is disgusted. The nurse, being a child of poor Polish immigrants, is expected to defend Francie. Instead, she agrees and makes the same rude remarks. Francie had an illusion that all women are like mothers - tender and loving. After this incident, however, she realizes how cruel prejudice can be, and that it can come from anyone and everyone. Once again, she feels humiliated.

When it is finally time for Francie to go to school, she gets so thrilled and immediately starts making high expectations for her first year. She anticipates to learn to read and write on the first day, receive her own school supplies, and to become the teacher’s pet. She becomes disillusioned when she enters school, though. It obviously takes weeks to learn to read and write. She only gets one pencil that she must return at the end of the day, and has to share desks with the other lower-class children. She also realizes that only certain people attain the rank of teacher’s pet – the rich schoolgirls.

Francie is disappointed upon coming to school, and continues her understanding of prejudice. During Christmastime, the family trades simple gifts to one another. Francie attends a Christmas event for the underprivileged children, where all the kids are too proud to accept any of the offers. When a small child wants to give

away one of her dolls to whoever is named “Mary,” no one stirs. Francie, not wanting to let the gift to go to waste, lies about her name to bring the doll home. Although all of the other children keep their pride, she loses it, and feel embarrassed.

On Francie’s way back home from buying a school magazine, she sees a young woman, Joanna, walking with her baby. The neighborhood gossips about Joanna – about her not being married and having a child. A group of women begin to taunt her, and throw stones. One hits the baby, and she starts bleeding. Francie, feeling compassion, gives up her only magazine and leaves it in the carriage as a present for Joanna. Joanna’s situation confuses Francie. Joanna always is kind to Francie, but Francie feels that she shouldn’t even return a smile to her.

She learns the hidden double standards there is with the women, who themselves aren’t such a good mother as Joanna, who criticize and taunt her. She realizes that Joanna’s crime was not promiscuity, but failing to have someone force to marry them. Francie decides that women cannot be trusted and that she cannot have women friends. She feels sympathy for Joanna, and once again loses a bit of innocence in seeing the truth of cruel injustice. Francie experiences her biggest fear when she opens the door at the bottom of the apartment building one day after school.

She is attacked by a sexual predator that killed a seven-year-old not too long beforehand. Although he didn’t have a change to do anything than touch her leg because Katie shot him, Francie was obviously traumatized by the

occurrence, and claimed she needed to get her leg cut off. Francie becomes a victim of sexual violence, and soon becomes the topic of gossip. Throughout the novel, Smith explains the fear Francie has of her mother and the trust and love she has towards her father. Around Christmastime, Katie tells Johnny that she is pregnant. Soon after, Johnny dies of pneumonia and acute lcoholism. After his death, the family has to struggle more with their financial issues. Moreover, Francie loses the one person she confided in. Katie soon forces the children to mourn over his death and to stay strong, but when Francie takes a walk with Neeley, they both grieve and cry endlessly over the loss of their cherished father. Francie was always a great writer throughout the story. Miss Gardner, her English teacher, always gave her straight “A’s. ” After Johnny dies, however, she starts to write more realistically – about hardships, troubles, and darker times in life.

Miss Gardner tells her that her newer stories are sordid and that she should burn the “ugly” stories. Francie feels disheartened since she loves to write. When she gets home, she keeps her pride and burns the “pretty”, prefect stories while chanting, “I am burning ugliness. ” Francie starts learning to ignore negative criticism from others and stand up for herself. Francie spends a lot of time wishing she wasn’t lonely – but not only friendship-wise. Every time she sees a couple, she longs for the same feeling.

Her friend, Anita, wants Francie to divert her boyfriend’s friend, so they can have some time alone. Francie and Lee, the friend, go out for chop suey, and

soon hit it off. Lee asks Francie if she could be his “best girl” for just the night, since he is engaged. They talk for hours, and the next day they go out to eat and then to dance. Francie has the same thought that Katie had when she met Johnny – that she would give anything to spend eternity with him. Before Lee leaves to fight in the war in France, he tells Francie that he loves her and that he will not marry his fiancee.

Although Francie does fall in love with him, she refuses when he asks if she would get a room with him for the night. Francie waits for a letter from Lee, but instead gets a letter from his new wife. She apologizes for Lee pretending to be in love with Francie. Lee fives Francie absolute happiness, then takes it away and leaver her heartbroken. Here, Katie realizes she can no longer protect her children, marking her large final step in loss of innocence. In conclusion, Francie becomes a strong, independent women due to her many struggles and hard times.

In the last chapter, Francie takes a walk through the neighborhood with her little sister before she moves. There is a sense of pride within the last chapter; a feeling of finally breaking through barriers. “The Tree of Heaven” grows all throughout Brooklyn, and is constantly connected with Francie. Like Francie, the tree grows no matter in what conditions it’s put in. Francie, like the tree, survived and grew strong despite poverty, pain, and loss. Francie is finally more aware of the world, and her position in it. Francie closes this

chapter in her life, and a future filled with promises lie ahead.