Katie is hard because she has to be. Her husband doesn't earn enough to feed the family and pay the rent and it is all up to her to do. I don't think the movie conveys how hard life was for the Nolans. The two apartments they are in, even the lower rent one, seem too nice for the squalid tenement that is described in the Betty Smith book. Even with Katie doing her best to keep the building scrubbed and clean, the Nolans' world is dirty and rough.
The movie is lovely and I watch it whenever I can, but it doesn't capture enough of the Nolans' struggles, and although I love Peggy Ann Garner, I thought she seemed too wispy to play the role of Francie. Francie had to be strong on many levels although she was also creative and dreamy. I can't see Peggy Ann's Francie having a Christmas tree thrown at her, or telling the nurse off when she and Neeley went to have their vaccinations before school started, or facing down Miss Garnder the English teacher when the teacher says her compositions are "sordid." (These events are all in the book.)
As others have suggested, people who see this movie and think Katie is "nasty" needs to read the book. It's a great, readable book, with a lot more details about all the family members, and details how Katie became hard after being a starry-eyed girl in love with a handsome fella. There was no welfare in those days, just charity and proud people like the Nolans did not go on charity because it was demeaning and considered shameful. Many people preferred to starve than go on charity. If Katie hadn't been hard and practical the family would have been out on the street, the kids probably sent to an orphanage. Heck, back then in some parts of the country they still had almshouses which separated husbands and wives and put the kids to work or adopted them out to people who wanted servants. Then Francie and Neeley would have never gotten any schooling, just done backbreaking work all their lives like other people without an education.
(In the book Katie realizes when Neeley is born that he is so much like his father that she is going to favor him over Francie. She knows it is wrong and tries not to do it, but it does happen. However, she depends on Francie and trusts her more than Neeley. This often happened back then, and probably still does, in families that have hard times; the oldest child has to become an adult quickly. This is what happens to Francie.)
Katie "did good" for her kids unfortunately at the expense of her marriage. But she kept them clothed, fed, and in school.
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