Precious mother: Mary was by no means an innocent person and that was portrayed well in the book. It was impossible for me to find any type of sympathy for her even when she was talking from her own point of view. Why did she allow Precious to be abused and also contribute to the abuse as well? In my opinion, I feel that she had no power because she was also uneducated, living in the projects, depending on government help, and her "man" was abusing their daughter and having kids with her. She abused Precious to gain some sense of power because in reality she had none and was a weak individual. What do you think?
Precious Education: So many things I could say about Precious education. While reading the book I found myself taking many breaks because it was so hard to read the things she was going through but also to read it the way she talked...illiterate. It made me appreciate my own education and the benefit I had of my mother supporting it. What kind of affect does the abuse have on Precious education? Also what role did her mother play with her education?
Race and Prejudice: Race and Prejudice both play a very important role in the novel. Why does Precious perceive whites and blacks a certain way? She goes through a lot in her life. What has the most affect on Precious prejudice? Sex? Upbringing? History? Ignorance?
This novel is filled with a lot of questions and some are answered and many you have to find the answer for yourself. As hard as it is to believe that someone went through so much in there life it's not impossible. Leaves me to ask the question... Will Precious become a statics or an individual? Yes, I know the way the book ended but it doesn't answer that question. Can she even be a individual with so many odds against her. I believe she could but a lot of the world would say she has too many cards stacked against her already to really be a function member of society.
Liz W.....
On Precious's mother,
ReplyDeleteI agree with the OP that her Mother was completely unredeemable. Many of the things she did were illegal (welfare fraud, child abuse, etc.), but she also broke taboo. Taboo is much stronger than law in society and when action is both taboo and illegal, there is no sentimentality or sympathy for the perpetrator. When I first read that her mother was sexually abusing her and passively allowing her father to abuse her in the same way, I was sickened and angered. The only thing that could have made this worse would be if it were a biography. Then, I would have a specific person to want to despise. Still, I know things like this happen in our world and it was powerful to be reminded of it.
I think her mother was completely angry and sad with her own life and that is why she did everything to make sure her daughter was as bad as or worse off than she was. She kept her eating, so that she would never be thinner than her and kept her scared and abused to help keep her education incomplete so that she would always be dependent. She also likely wanted company for her misery and knew that Precious, being her child, would be the only one who might stay with her. This reasoning could lead to the abuse that Precious suffered, the abuser attempting to keep the victim perpetually submissive. However, Precious was strong enough to escape the cycle of violence and pursue her education against all odds.
On a lighter note,
After I read about Precious's mother and her bad qualities, I checked to see if this novel was co-written by Ronald Reagan. It seems that this character is based on Reagan's elusively sensational "welfare queen."
“She abused Precious to gain some sense of power…” I would have to agree with this statement completely. Clearly Precious’ mother survived only from paycheck to paycheck with no ambitions, no plans, she just survived. She really was a pitiful character, I’m sure based on Precious’ descriptions she hated how she looked, probably hated herself and the only real connection she had was to Precious’ father. I think she hated herself too much to ever really love another human being and to make it even worse she was jealous of her own daughter. The scenes where she forced Precious to eat second helpings of their dinner showed that Mary was trying to drag her daughter down with her. She wanted Precious to be as big as her, basically as unattractive as her; that school bully mentality of “if I can’t feel good about myself, you can’t feel good about yourself either.” The same thing is true of Precious’ education, I think her mother was threatened by Precious’ schooling, but fortunately Precious had to go to school for the mother to receive her welfare in its entirety.
ReplyDeleteI think that the abuse both hindered and helped her education. From her flashbacks it is obvious that the abuse forced her into a reclusive bubble that rendered her education useless for a long time. However if she had never been kicked out of public school for being pregnant she may have never discovered the alternative school which was the most beneficial for her by far.
I think the best part about how the novel ended was the scene with Precious and her son. We see in this scene an entirely different character from the beginning of the book as she rocked her baby and read him a bedtime story. So I think that the important thing is not so much the road Precious has yet to travel as the fact that already the next generation is miles ahead from where she started. Precious had no parental role models to look up to but she had managed to provide her child with everything she never had, she turned things around and offered a glimmer of hope for the future. I think she already beat the odds.
-Elizabeth Farley
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Liz F. I think that the drastic changes that Precious experienced throughout the novel are proof that she has and will beat the odds. However, I think there is an important lesson here. From the beginning of the novel we find that Precious wants to learn. She has respect for Mr. Wicher. She has a desire to be smart and escape the life that she is stuck in. I think this desire for change and love is what leads her to Mrs. Rain's class in the first place. The mixture of Mrs. Rain's support and Precious's desire to succeed and learn is what helps her and makes her beat the odds. Often times, we forgot that there are children in the world who do not want to learn. They don't care. They don't have any respect for authority or themselves. These kids are often the kids that become statistics, but I think that every child, even the stubborn, disrespectful one, deserves the love and support that Mrs. Rain shows Precious. Every child can beat the odds, but some of them need a reality check beaten into them first. Precious understood that self improvement was her ticket to a better life for herself and a safer life for her son.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth Willbanks
I, as well, had trouble reading this book. It was one of the most graphic books I have ever read.
ReplyDeleteI almost gagged when, on pg. 21, Precious's mother moves her hand up her daughter's thy...and into you know where. To me, that is so hard to fathom. Her father malesting her - calling her all kinds of horrid names...getting her pregnant. The abuse, both physical and mental, was almost too much for me to read about, and the illiteracy made it that much worse. At age 16, I felt like Precious was still 10 from the way she "spoke/wrote."
Elizabeth - I agree. All children/young adults CAN learn...and ALL of them have some desire deep down to do so. I feel like I, being an educated, middle-class person, sometimes take my education for granted. I never would've guessed that there were people out there like Precious.
And what does this book say for our public schools to keep passing the kids even though they are not fit to move on? Even though it is apparent that there are issues deeper than a short attention span that need to be dealt with? mrs. Lichenstein did, indeed, do the right thing by informing Precious about the Alternative school, but I just wonder where everyone else's heads were? School systems should be more compassionate than the one in "Push" was depicted.
Liz,
ReplyDeleteThe question raised concerning Precious's mother was something I really struggled with as well throughout the book. I wrote in one of my discussion board postings about how if her mother could have atleast played a battered victim herself, or lived in fear of intervening because of the husband maybe taking it out on her, I may have shown her more grace. What you said about her showing power of Precious because she really had no power or control of her own makes sense. I feel that may be the case too often in abusive homes, or even homes that aren't recognized as abusive. Parents may take advantage of control at home simply because they can as they take frustration out on their families. It's just so heart-wrenching in Precious's case because of the depth of abuse. Great post Liz!
Yes. I know Precious has beat so many odds against her already and her story is nothing short of amazing. I feel her mother tried to do everything in her power to break her but she end up winning. It's very hard to believe that someone went through so much at a young age. The question I'm still asking is, why the state never noticed anything weird after all their visits? I believe they did know something but refused to act on it. That saddens me greatly.
ReplyDeleteLiz Weary,
ReplyDeleteMy best friend's parents took in foster kids for years and there was a family of four kids that they kept on and off for a couple of years. The biological parents were sexually and physically abusive to the children, the parents rarely showed up for required sessions to get their kids back, but nonetheless the courts would always put the kids back in their custody after they showed up at their "last chance" meeting. Our hearts broke because the kids begged to stay with my friend's parents. But the system always tries to keep kids with their biological parents.
I don't quite understand why this happens. I know in many cases there aren't enough families willing to take in the overabundance of kids in abusive homes. But when there are families willing to adopt (like this family was), it seems like a no-brainer; why wouldn't you do everything you could to give a child a chance at a better life?
Liz,
ReplyDeleteI, too, wondered why the State never noticed anything awry in their visits. Although I do think that this could have been one of the points Sapphire wanted to make in this work, that there are flaws in the social service system. There are many cases where people cheat the system (welfare and such), and there are just so many cases out there that it can be easy for certain situations to go unnoticed. My mom taught kindergarten in inner-city Memphis (the slum of the slums) and there were just so many cases where welfare actually promoted people to NOT work, to NOT strive for a better life, but to just settle. The way the system stands, the more kids you have the more money you EARN (which is supposed to be used for the kids, but is not always the case). Sorry for the rant on welfare, but just one more thing: our welfare system will continue to fail if it doesn’t start acting as a spring board instead of a plateau, a means to an end instead of an end to a means.
Elizabeth,
I, too, was inspired by Precious’ will to learn. In fact, she has more drive than many high school students we will soon be teaching (for the future educators out there). I guess this story displays that it is not necessarily a person’s situation that completely determines how they end up, but their internal drive, their will to succeed that truly defines who a person is.
-Will
Precious's mother was despicable. She physically, sexually and mentally abused her daughter. She allowed Precious's father to rape her, and then all she could do was blame Precious for "stealing her man". What kind of mother DOES this? Aside from her own gratification and her welfare check, this woman cared about nothing. She certainly didn't care anything about her daughter. The only reason she let Precious stay in the house was because she contributed to her welfare "budget". The same was true with "Little Mongo"...Mary was content with her mother raising the child until the social worker came for a visit. Then, and only then, did she try to act like a grandmother (purely for the social worker's benefit, of course). And after Precious had moved into the halfway house, the only reason she came crying to the social worker about wanting to reconnect with her daughter and grandchildren was the fact that her welfare was getting cut. It was disgusting.
ReplyDeleteThere are people in this world that loathe themselves and then thrive on making other people feel just as worthless. I think that was Mary's objective: to make Precious feel worse than she did. She didn't want her to better herself by getting an education. She wanted her to remain ignorant and stay on welfare for the rest of her life.
On Precious's Prejudices
ReplyDeleteI always thought that for one to love yourself you must love others. I think those that lash out at others are, in fact, actually more mad at their own inadequacies than those of the person they are ridiculing. Precious has serious prejudices. At first she is very race conscious and homophobic. Her new friendships make her confront those prejudices. She really likes the Hispanic EMT man. He makes her look at other races as human for the first time. She finds that all people have their own problems and aren't all that different from herself. Precious says, “I hate crack addicts. They give race a bad name” (14). This is early in the novel and she just assumes that all crack addicts are all racially the same. She is ignorant about the way of the world and of her own prejudices. When Ms. Rain takes her to her home after the big fight with her mother, Precious is amazed to learn that she is “butch,” or gay. I could just picture her evaluating the situation. She quickly came to terms with her homophobia: she had to. Like what Elizabeth suggested, pressure changes the situation. In conclusion, I think the most influential component of Precious's prejudices is her ignorance.
I think the most Precious’s prejudice are mostly influenced by her family/upbringing and ignorance. Every parent plays a huge part in a child’s life for good or for bad. Hopefully the influence of a parent will provide a positive look at the world and at every aspect of the world. This, however, is not always the case as we see in Push. I think Precious’s family doesn’t know enough about the world other than what her mother in particular sees on the television to teach Precious anything useful culturally speaking. Because of the place Precious lives, she isn’t able to get any outside opinion about the world and world views of people and prejudices. The teachers and counselors Precious has met do not seem to have done any good with her. It was only when Precious learned that Rita’s (maybe Rhonda’s) boyfriend had AIDS that she could understand that not all white people are the same. I find this very unfortunate but was happy to learn that Precious was able to start learning about prejudices through the Each One Teach One program.
ReplyDelete-Kelly