What is the importance of the rotting cherry tree in the novel, One of Ours?

The rotting cherry tree symbolizes Claude's discontented relationship with his family and his life in Frankfort. When Claude is a child, his father chops down a beautiful cherry tree as a practical joke, ruining the plant Claude and his mother loved. Claude would watch the "tree grow sicker, wilt and wither away" (15). Just as the cherry tree lifelessly rots, so too does Claude rot away in Frankfort, for Frankfort cannot fulfill Claude's desire for greatness. In this way, the tree comes to symbolizes Claude's relationship with his home.