Claireece "Precious" Jones

Essay: A Lifetime of Disappointment

PROMPT: Choose a novel or play that depicts a conflict between a parent (or a parental figure) and a son or daughter. Write an essay in which you analyze the sources of the conflict and explain how the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid plot summary.

A Lifetime of Disappointment

          Claireece "Precious" Jones is a sixteen year old girl from Harlem who faces all of the most difficult challenges that life could possibly give one person. She has been repeatedly raped by her father since she was a baby and abused by her mother both physically and emotionally. The issues of abuse are so consuming to a child that the effects can be unbearable. Their abuse towards Precious is the main source of many conflicts that are present in her life.
            First of all, by being abused by her father ever since she could remember, Precious closed off the world around her at school. She stopped paying attention, listening and caring about school in general. Therefore, Precious never learned to read and write at a young age like most elementary children.  Precious was also made fun of and bullied in school which is most likely an issue in contributing to her obesity. Precious had her first child at the age of twelve and was forced to leave school. Leaving school left Precious alone with nobody in her house to turn to since she was an abused, only child.
            Precious' mother blamed her for the father's abuse. The emotional problems of the mother caused her to physically act out her frustrations toward Precious in a harmful way. She would beat, kick and push her own daughter as well as sexually abuse her. The mother knew about the sexual abuse of the father and was jealous of Precious instead of helping her own daughter. Precious developed a "thick skin" to deal with her struggles at home. This attitude continued with her through the dangerous streets of Harlem into her classroom at school.
            Precious had so many issues that could be blamed on her parents. Because she was raped and abused, Precious mentally escaped into an internal darkness. This darkness led to shutting down at school, not paying attention, not caring, not learning, and eventually being suspended for being pregnant with her father's child. It took having her second child at sixteen to realize that someone could be kind and care about her situation. The EMS that helped deliver her child was the first person to show Precious a genuine act of kindness. This made her realize that she could feel warmth from someone who cared.
            The conflict of Precious' journey through incest, abuse and neglect leads her in an unlikely path. Her challenges with school eventually guide her to an alternative school in which she begins to make a change within herself. The teacher opens up Precious' mind to a world of words. At first she cannot spell these words, but she knows what she wants to say. She does the best she can to express her feelings in a journal.  This was the best therapy for Precious to regain a new hope in life. Her battles in life were expressed through her poetic writing which a teacher became more than a teacher, but a friend.
            Precious' worst nightmare of being raped by her father ended up giving her a child that gave her so much to hope for. Her hardships did not keep her from learning to read and write, which opened up a whole new world. If Precious had not told her story of her abuse, the world would not be privileged to her insight on hope as written in her poetry. Precious shows how even her struggles never completely got the best of her.

Nursery Rhyme

"Everi mornin
i write
a poem
before I go to
school
marY Had a little lamb
but I got a kid
an HIV
that folow me
to school
one day."
-Precious J.

I found this poem by Precious very sad and depressing. The fact is, she has enough strength and hope to go to school and write, which she loves to do. This is such a struggle since she has a child, is sick and still manages to push through her problems in a positive way. Also, this poem in Ms. Rain's class book has shown how far Precious has come in her education and life.

Heart of Harlem

Growing up in Harlem, Precious was raised in a bad neighborhood to begin with and faced with many obstacles. I felt so sympathetic towards her for so many reasons such as the way she was raised. I cannot imagine living in a neighborhood so dangerous. Precious lived a completely different life than what I know now. She did all of the cooking,  was raped by her father, abused by her mother, uneducated, had two children of her own and had no reason for simply anything. She had nobody else in her house to turn to as an abused only child. My heart was saddened for her in hopes someone would help her.

An Apple for the Teacher

I find it amazing how a teacher can be so inspiring and leave an impact on a child in such a positive way. I have had several teachers that had a positive influence on me by the way they taught the class or the connection I had with them. I can picture how the connection between Precious and Ms. Rain drastically turned her life around. Ms. Rain helped Precious in more ways than just in the classroom.

The Smell of Abuse

I find it interesting how Precious describes shutting out everything and everyone around her. The description of the ongoing abuse and rape by her father from the time she was a child until she was pregnant at the age of twelve is disturbing to me. I have noticed how Precious often relates the abuse to horrible, dirty smells. The physical abuse by both Precious' mother and father is very shocking and it seems that she has never had any positive connection with either of them her entire life.

A Child's Child

Just by reading the first page of the book, I am introduced to what a difficult life Claireece "Precious" Jones has. Right away I realize that she is an incest victim, uneducated and pregnant for the second time at the age of sixteen. This is disturbing to me in the fact that not only is she pregnant for the second time, but that both of her children are fathered by her own father. It is hard for me to believe that somebody could be in Precious' condition at her age. It is sad that she had no control over her own situation.

Book2Media

Thirteen years after its release, Sapphire's novel Push was made into Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, a film that won two Academy Awards and was produced by Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry. The film holds the record as the highest grossing picture to open in fewer than 100 theaters and holds the record for the highest grossing average per screen for films shown in fewer than 50 theaters. The movie Precious is the only media remake based on Sapphire's novel.

Publication

 Push is the 1996 debut novel of American author Sapphire. Sapphire submitted the first 100 pages of Push to a publisher auction in 1995 and the highest bidder offered her $500,000 to finish the novel. The book was published on June 11, 1996 by Vintage Publishing and has since sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

Author Biography

    Romona Lofton was born on August 4, 1950 and is better known by her pen name Sapphire. She is an American author and performance poet. Sapphire lives in New York City. She is openly bisexual. Like her character Precious, Sapphire herself was sexually abused; in her case which was by her own father, a US army sergeant, at the age of eight. She also became a member of a gay organization named United Lesbians of Color for Change Inc. Lofton took the name "Sapphire" because of its one-time cultural association with the image of a "belligerent black woman," and also because she said she could more easily picture that name on a book cover than her birth name.
http://aalbc.com/authors/sapphire.htm

Precious: Trailer