1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read according to the elements of plot you've learned in past courses (exposition, inciting incident, etc.). Explain how the narrative fulfills the author's purpose (based on your well-informed interpretation of same).
2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel. Avoid cliches.
3. Describe the author's tone. Include a minimum of three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).
4. Describe a minimum of ten literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your understanding of the author's purpose, the text's theme and/or your sense of the tone. For each, please include textual support to help illustrate the point for your readers. (Please include edition and page numbers for easy reference.)
CHARACTERIZATION
1. Describe two examples of direct characterization and two examples of indirect characterization. Why does the author use both approaches, and to what end (i.e., what is your lasting impression of the character as a result)?
2. Does the author's syntax and/or diction change when s/he focuses on character? How? Example(s)?
3. Is the protagonist static or dynamic? Flat or round? Explain.
4. After reading the book did you come away feeling like you'd met a person or read a character? Analyze one textual example that illustrates your reaction.
1. This novel, "Push" by Sapphire , takes place in Harlem, New York in 1987. Our main character is a sixteen-year-old, named Claireece Jones, who goes by her middle name Precious. She is an illiterate, overweight, African-American welfare child. She is constantly emotionally and physically abused by her mother and sexually abused by her father. She is pregnant with her second child, both children fathered by her biological father, who has continually raped her since she was a child. Her infant daughter, Mongo, who has Down Syndrome, lives with Precious' grandmother. Precious lives with her abusive mother, Mary. Mary does nothing but smoke, watch television, and collect welfare through fraud. She believes that education does nothing for Precious, who she would rather also collect welfare to bring money into the household. To escape her life, Precious often daydreams of herself in glamorous situations. She often imagines herself as a white pretty blonde with a white boyfriend to escape the horror of her life. Because of her current pregnancy, Precious' principal transfers her into an alternative school. In dealing with the school's sympathetic and encouraging teacher, Ms. Blu Rain, Precious begins to believe that she can have a future by learning how to read and write. Precious begins to believe she can escape the grips of her abusive mother, who, up to this point, was Precious' only real support. After getting into a horrible argument with her mother, Precious is abandoned and left to begin life on her own. But, with the help of Ms. Rain, she is able to stay in a halfway house. Although this may not be the most ideal living space, it gives her the opportunity to start over and have independence from her dark past. After learning that her father passed away from aids, Precious tests positive for HIV and is left to join support groups and continue on with her journey. The reader is then left to imagine Precious' whereabouts and future as the novel ends with Precious' writings about her life.
2. Central themes to this novel include independence, self-confidence, and determination. Precious uses these characteristics to become independent from her dark past and to create a better future. She never gave up on herself. She began to stop imagining herself as an appealing white girl and began to accept herself for the person she really is, making herself someone to be proud of. Rather than being controlled by circumstance, Precious chose her future:
one where her self-image depends wholly on her own decisions, rather than by the
oppressive surroundings she grew up in. Because of her decision to part from
those oppressive surroundings, Precious ultimately discovers from her newfound
confidence and her self-respect that her identity is only what she makes of
it. Together, these all tie in the central themes to this novel.
3. Precious begins the novel functionally illiterate. She spells words phonetically. She uses words such as "nuffin'" for nothing, "git" for get, "borned" for born, etc. She also uses an array of four-letter words and harsh details that reflect the life she has experienced. The following is an example of the poor grammar she uses in the novel: "Last week we went to the museum. A whole whale is hanging from the ceiling. Bigger than big! OK, have you seen a Volkswagen car that's like a bug? Um huh, you know what I'm talking about. That's how big the heart of a blue whale is. I know it's not possible, but if that heart in me could I love more? Ms Rain, Rita, Abdul?" (p. 138). This lack of education contributes to the tone's ignorance. Also, throughout the novel, Precious describes traumatizing events as if they were a mild crime-like running a red light. But, her childish tone up brings the emotions of sadness brought on by a lack of understanding. The following is an example of her childish tone: “I'm alive inside. A bird is my heart. Mama and Daddy is not win. I'm winning. I'm drinking hot chocolate in the Village wif girls--all kind who love me. How that is so I don't know. How Mama and Daddy know me sixteen years and hate me, how a stranger meet me and love me. Must be what they already had in they pocket” (p. 152). A self- destructive tone is used by Precious as the struggles in her life have caused her to have such low confidence and self-esteem. This brings a somber tone to the entire course of the novel as you feel sympathy those someone who look at themselves so harshly. This is portrayed as she states, “I know I’m stupid. I know I’m worthless, but I coulda been a star-a stupid worthless star. What I can't be I kill” (p. 143).
4. The following are 10 literary elements/techniques I observed that strengthened my understanding of the author's purpose, the text's theme and/or my sense of the tone:
1) Illeism is used as it conveys the understanding of a child stuck in a 16-year-old's body.
Example: "Precious wandered what the file said..." (pg. 30).
2) Epithets are used to allow the reader to understand how Precious first categorizes people based on the first impression.
Example: "...the cornrow head said smiling" (pg. 32).
3) Flashbacks are used to help the reader understand the events that played out in Precious's entire life in "sneek peaks".
Example: "She is 12 no was 12? She is 16 now" (pg. 23).
4) Problematic dialect is used by Sapphire.
Example: “I bite my fingernails till they look like disease, pull strips of my skin away. Get Daddy's razor out cabinet. Cut cut cut arm wrist, not trying to die, trying to plug myself back in” (p. 111).
5) Tragedy is a main device seen by the audience from the series of rapes, to the Down Syndrome child, to the revealing of HIV positive in the family.
Example: "I'm not happy to be HIV positive" (pg. 141).
6) Precious is presented as being illiterate, representing her poor upbringing and lack of education and childhood.
Example: “Last week we went to the museum. A whole whale is hanging from the ceiling. Bigger than big! OK, have you seen a Volkswagon car that's like a bug? Um huh, you know what I'm talking about. That's how big the heart of a blue whale is. I know it's not possible, but if that heart was in me, could I love more?...I would like to” (p. 138).
7) Imagery is brought upon by Precious' daydreaming and imaginings of a "better" life as she imagines herself to be a white blonde with a white boyfriend. She does this to block out her dark past and dream of a better future.
Example: "My name is Claireece "Precious" Jones. I wish I had a light-skinned boyfriend with real nice hair. And I wanna be on the cover of a magazine. But first I wanna be in one of them BET videos. Momma said I can't dance. Plus, she said who wants to see my big ass dancing, anyhow?"
8) The tragic and somber mood simulated in this novel contributes to the overall tone by creating a sympathetic aura for the readers.
Example: "I'm walking across the lobby room real real slow. Full of chicken, bread; usually that make me not want to cry remember, but I feel like crying now" (pg. 40).
9) Another literary device used is Stream of Consciousness. The novel itself is basically a diary of Precious's life events and thoughts on every aspect of her life from her beatings to her fantasies.
Example: "I want to tell her what I always want to tell someone, that the pages, 'cept for the ones with pictures, look all the same to me.." (pg. 50).
10) Biblical/ religious references used:
-“...something like that make me feel what Rhonda, what Farrakhan, say - there is a god. But me when I think of it I'm more inclined to go with Shug in The Colour Purple. God ain' white, he ain' no Jew or Muslim, maybe he ain' even black, maybe he ain' even a 'he.' Even now I go downtown and see .. I see those men in vacant lot share one hot dog and they homeless, that's good as Jesus with his fish. I remember when I had my daughter, nurse nice to me too - all that is god."
-“If God made anything better than Coffee and Chocolate, he kept it to himself.”
CHARACTERIZATION
1. Direct characterization of Precious:
"I should be in the eleventh grade, getting ready to go into the twelf' grade so I can gone 'n graduate. But I'm not. I'm in the ninfe grade" (pg. 1).
“I know I’m stupid. I know I’m worthless, but I coulda been a star-a stupid worthless star. What I can't be I kill” (p. 143).
Indirect characterization of Precious:
"My father don't see me really. If he did he would know I was like a white girl, a real person, inside" (pg. 14).
“I changed the past by walking back into it” (p. 163).
Sapphire uses both approaches of direct characterization and indirect characterization to give you a broad sense of what the character is like and to then give eventful support and reason. As a result to both of these approaches, I see Precious as a strong girl who has been through a lot of hardship at such young age. I see her as having a lot of potential for a great future if she remains determined to stay completely independent from her dark past.
2. The author's syntax and diction alternate between each page break. Precious speaks of herself in an illeism stance, or in first person, while another section could be told by an outside third person perspective. When the story is told from Precious' perspective, the style of writing is not as literate and educated as that of the author's. Example: "'Precious!' That's my mother calling me'" (pg. 9). "This time she knew Mama knew. Umm hmm, she knew. She brought him to me. I ain' crazy, that stinky hoe gave me to him" (pg. 25).
3. The protagonist, Precious, is a dynamic and round character. She changes dramatically over the course of the novel. In the beginning, she lives life in fear and in hatred of herself and the realities of her troubled life. She lives in fear of her abusive mother and father and in hatred of her worth and self-image. But, once she joins the Each One Teach One alternative school, she realizes that there is opportunity for her out there. As long as she set her mind to it, she could make a difference for herself and change her life for the better. She goes from hopeless to independent and optimistic over the course of the novel.
4. After reading "Push" by Sapphire, I came away with feeling like I really got to know and feel for Precious. After reading about all her life struggles, how she dealt with them, and her thoughts along the way, she was a character I didn't want to let go of. When Precious says, "I'm alive inside. A bird is my heart. Mama and Daddy is not win. I'm winning. I'm drinking hot chocolate in the Village wif girls--all kind who love me. How that is so I don't know. How Mama and Daddy know me sixteen years and hate me, how a stranger meet me and love me. Must be what they already had in they pocket," you realize that Precious is just an innocent girl who seeks love just like anyone else. Sadly, she does not recieve this from the ones she should be closest to. This caused me to feel sorry for her and want to help her find the life she deserves. Ultimately, I respect her for looking past all her life struggles and seeking to create a better future for herself. Many people, including myself, may not have been as strong enough to triumph over her situation.
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