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Renae Evans 04-27-2010 “ Push” by Sapphire Enriched and nurtured in the tradition of Toni Morrison and Alice Walker, Sapphire creates a womanist text that depicts a new voice of the African-American woman in Push. It is a troubling and intriguing novel narrated from the viewpoint of an uneducated, sexually abused Harlem adolescent, Precious Jones - ill-treated, deprived, fuming, obese, loathed, ignored and hence self-taught, direct, naive, raw as being sensible, worthy and truly humane. Precious Jones, the teenage protagonist, suffers unbelievable adversities for her young age — raped by her father (when she was only seven years old), ill-treated and badly beaten by her mother. At the start of the novel, Precious Jones is pregnant for the second time with her father's child. She says, “Don’t nobody want me. Don't nobody need me. I know who I am...ugly black grease to be wipe away, punish, kilt, changed, finded a job for"(p. 33). This obviously shows how much has she hates herself. Precious believes her life would be different if she were a white girl. She thinks white girls have all imaginable happiness a girl could possibly have. Precious realizes her physical appearance made people to mistreat her. Even if she sits obediently in class every day, she experiences-"I always did like school, jus' seem school never did like me"[(p. 38). In fact the school principal tells her teacher to renounce her, saying "Focus on the ones who can learn"(p. 39). She realizes at some point that "The tesses paint a picture of me wif no brain," "The tesses paint a picture of me an' my muver-my whole family, we more than dumb, we invisible" (p. 33). She despises the world that makes her and her family “invisible”—as if they don’t exist –dumb brainless creatures, a race much despised, whose identity lies only in so far as they are prejudice. Precious hates to be identified with such a culture; she says "I hate crack addicts. They give the race a bad name"(p. 14). Wherever she goes, frustration is all she has in her life. From the first line of Push, Precious Jones shows her resentment against her childhood, the “incest” of her father to whom she has been a recurring victim. Her father, who came to her in the night, had “pushed” her backside and lobbed his fetid “pee-pee” in her mouth, then at last in her vagina. This has gone on for years. Her mother does not guard her from him, but rather yells at her saying odd things (and hitting her as well) like "Thank you Miz Claireece Precious Jones for fucking my husband you nasty little slut” (19). It's difficult to picture how in the course of the story many more disasters come Precious's way. “Little Mongo”, Precious's first child, whom she conceived at the age of 12, shows symptoms to have Down's syndrome and is hurriedly carried off from her. Soon after her second child is born, Precious gets herself out on the streets of Harlem, with no home to live. Very soon, she comes to know that her father has transmitted H.I.V to her. As stated by Kakutani in a book review, “No wonder that under such conditions, Precious frequently feels that her brains has turned into a TV set, playing and replaying videos that tender her a short break from the dreary realities of her routine”. In these fantasies, she is slim, not flab; white, not black; appreciated, not ridiculed.

At the start, Precious worships the Rev. Louis Farrakhan, the Black Muslim leader, known for his aversion for Jews. Jewish leaders and others have reproach Farrakhan’s criticisms against Judaism. Before experiencing another days of misery, Precious loves to start her day by watching Farrakhan’s face on the wall. She never experiences affection and the warmth of love from others. She desperately needs some positive imagery in her life which she gets from Farrakhan’s picture. To explain Precious’ admiration for Farrakhan, Sapphire told in an interview to Mark Marvel (in 1996) that Precious needs a “positive view of black men. She doesn't know that there's something negative about Farrakhan. She doesn't know that hating gay people or hating Jews or hating foreigners is detrimental to her. What's been detrimental to her is being poor, being abused, and being illiterate” (Sapphire’s Interview,Marvel,findarcles.com). As for her admiration of Alice Walker, Precious finds her own experiences echoed in Celie in Alice Walker's The Color Purple. The title, Push, mirrors the power of the book. "Push" is a word that manifests action. Push. Force. Impel. Smash into. Move onward. These all cover the spirit of what it is to make a great effort. Explaining the title of the novel, Sapphire told Havel that the beginning of novel depicts “the scene where twelve-year-old Precious is giving birth. I was trying to get across that very basic, primal female energy of bringing forth life. There is something very aggressive and assertive about being a female. We're taught to be very laid-back and passive, but if we're to survive, if we're to move forward, we have to have that pushing energy.” In her first reading session of Push (on Brooklyn's Flatbush Avenue), she said that she “wanted the focus to be on the way Precious rises above the abuse rather than on the abuse itself" .Push to her stands for female energy. At the end of the novel, Precious turns out to be educated, and have a life. "Precious is a pushy little girl and she will not be stopped” (Owen, Book Review). At the end of the novel, Precious says, “Everybody know I write poems. People respect me” (138). This shows she got over her inferiority complex. Literary power gave her the strength to move on from her brutal past and ignorance to self-determination.

Works Cited

Sapphire (Ramona Lofton), Push, Vintage; Reprint edition, 1997

Miller, Lisa, Push, Book Review, http://desires.com/2.4/Word/Reviews/Docs/push.html

Havel, Mark, Sapphire's big push - Sapphire's novel, 'Push' – Interview, June, 1996, retrieved from http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1285/is_n6_v26/ai_18450196

Kakutani, Michiko, A Cruel World, Endless Until a Teacher Steps In, Book Review, Push, June 14, 1996, retried from http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E3D91739F937A25755C0A960958260

Owen, Sally, Push, Book Review,http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/f96sapphire.html