Push by Sapphire

In the novel Push, Precious faces many hardships that no one should ever have to experience. Despite seemingly insurmountable hardships, the lessons one can take away from reading Precious’ story is that one must never give up trying to survive. Determination can take one a long way, even through the face of adversity.

The three main themes in the novel Push, written by Sapphire, are survival, abuse, and determination.

Survival is the main theme in the book. All humans have life goals. Some want to be lawyers, others want to be dentist. Some want to be good mothers. Precious’ only life goal in the beginning of the novel is to survive the hard life that she has been given. She does not have the luxury to set any personal, professional, or academic goals. She is too busy trying get through another day. Precious just need to figure out how she is going to take one more deep breath and carry on with her hard life in Harlem. Even though she is facing a lot of downs in her life she is still not giving up the right to live. Already from the beginning of the book Precious is struggling, but in the end she needs to face her problems. One cannot hide their problems at home and just go on with their life like nothing is wrong. It tears one inside out. One of the reasons why the book has a focus on survival is for those who are not strong enough to stand up and face their own problems. Not only has she had a hard childhood while growing up in Harlem, Precious has dealt with continually being raped. The theme of abuse shapes Precious from the age of three. She is being abused by her father and repeatedly raping her, while her mother stands by and allows it. Precious do not have a word in this horrifying situation because when violence and abuse is happening behind closed doors nobody is talking about it. The raping of her three year old daughter leads to increased jealousy from her mother, prompting her to physically abuse Precious. Again physically abuse is playing a big role in the story. Many young girls and boys are facing these hard situations but not doing anything about it. This shows that one is very truthfully to their parents and would never tell on them. The horrific part about it is that her mother does not contract AIDS because Carl is always having intercourse with Precious rather than her. It is horrible to see such a young girl being physically abused by her biological parents. One is going to be scarred for life. The bruises fade away but the bruises inside will be there permanently. When one grows up one learns that they can always lean on their parents for help and them being their rock. In this situation Precious does not have any rock to stand by. She is left alone. The book is trying to open the reader’s eyes and to understand that not everyone has a worm home to turn to. But there must be a deeper meaning to it. Abuse is taboo.