Summary Of The Novel Push
In the novel "Push", Precious is pregnant for the second time with her own
father's child, and regularly beaten and ordered around by her jealous, withdrawn mother.
At sixteen, she is completely illiterate and her life seems to repeat the self-destructive
pattern of her mother's. It was not until her principal sends her to an alternative reading
class, where with the help of a dedicated teacher and fellow students who have undergone
experiences as disturbing as her own, did she start on a path to rebuilding her life. She
begins to learn how to read and discover new words, friendship, and in the process,
herself. Precious is, of course, a name dripping with irony, given to her by the same
woman who has perpetrated these crimes. Ironic, too, is the picture of the white child on
the toilet paper wrapper: Precious's vocabulary of images is so poor that in her mind,
beauty and love is attached to something to be used, in the most degrading way. This
novel records Precious's struggle to haul herself out of the reject pile. But no amount of e
effort will save her; when eventually Mama resurfaces, it is to announce that Precious's
father just died of AIDS. She found out that she and her newborn son are infected; thus
even as she tries to better herself, Precious is doomed, just like the product that bears the
white child's image. "We is a nation of raped children," she has learned; and even "the
black man in America today" (her father) "is the product of rape." The novel ends with
everything uncertain and unfinished, but with a young woman changed by the appearance
of self-respect.
Precious was twelve years old when she was first pregnant by her father. This
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