A Tree Grows In Brooklyn 1945 Film James Gleason, Dorothy McGuire, Joa...

How can any sensitive, politically literate reader read this book and see it as a literary celebration of " OUR democracy " ( but " they lived happily ever after in America the Beautiful " ! ) among the poor immigrant families and their neighborhoods at the turn of the century ? It is really impossible to sentimentalize the social reality of the BOOK . The bulk of the novel can be compared with the dark stories of Zola, Theodore Dreiser , James T. Farrell , even the realism of Stephen Crane . Whatever the gifted author , Betty Smith 's political blinders , this story is raw material explaining the turn of the century SOCIALIST movement in the United States . I need to know more about author Betty Smith . Is there something " inspiring " about the Darwinian social struggle in Upton Sinclair's " The Jungle " ? Holy Jesus will make sure all is well in the end ? Leave it to Hollywood to sentimentalize a social nightmare ! ( the movie does this better than the last part of " A Tree Grows in Brooklyn ". Hopefully in the end the CLASS STRUGGLE will triumph over social Darwinism. One criticism of the novel : it does seem rather obtuse on the colossal event known as the First World War . No connection in the author's mind to capitalism and rival nation state imperialisms ? 1917 witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution in Czarist Russia : " Ten Days That Shook The World ". By then or soon after the heroine of the novel is happily married to a now prosperous ex-cop and Democrat city politician. I guess the Irish Catholic God finally smiled on our endearing Francie . Then even a cynical reader needs the proverbial " candle in the dark " .