Push By Precious Jones

Push is an expressively controlling, upsetting novel written from the outlook of a poor young black woman whose life has been well-defined by sexual, emotional, and physical abuse. Precious Jones lives in Harlem, New York with her mother, who is overweight and a shut-in. Precious's mother beats her and sexually molests her. Her father is a bad figure in her life. He doesn’t live with the family, but only comes when he wants to have sex with Precious. He started having sex with Precious when she was three. Her mother is right next to them the first time he has sex with Precious, and although she sees what’s going she does not do anything about it. At twelve, Precious has her first child, and four years later she has another, with that she gets suspended from school. Her dad is the father of both of her children, the strong often pray on the weak.

Claireece Jones is the main character of this novel. She chooses to call herself Precious when she was young because she thought the meaning of the word, Precious, would get her father to stop sexually abusing her. Precious is a normal sixteen year old girl who lives in a cruel world. She has two kids by her father, who is sexually abusing her. Her mother overlooks the abuse and starts to sexually abuse Precious too. When at school she is made fun of for being fat and stupid. She normally zones out because she has to daydream about other things to keep from going crazy. Precious dreadfully wants to get out of her situation, but the only thing she knows how to do is imagine about being somewhere else.

She soon finds out about an alternative school close to her, Each One Teach One, and, after some pushing from a school counselor who trusts in her, she goes to get herself registered, badly w...

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... them light-skinned girls that’s big an’ fat, they got boyfriends.” – pg. 113 this quote shows that pressure is insecure about herself and wishes she looked like the other kids around her. She wishes she isn’t fat and dumb and she wishes that she could just get away from life as she lives it every day.

This story made me think about bullying and how it can really affect the life of many people. Precious was never educated the right way her whole life she was scared and hurt, she soon just gave up. When she went to Miz Rains class she felt like there she could finally be herself and people there actually cared about her. Being that she got pregnant with two kids by her father was horrifying and the fact that her mother treated her even badly is was sorry. I think the moral of this story is that you should never give up on life because there’s always a breakthrough.