Saturday 11 February 2012

Critique of Push

http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-push-by-sapphire/

This is a review by a female author/writer/teacher from Chicargo named Heloise. Her critique is filled with rhetorical questions; 'How does a dark-skinned, ugly, obese, unloved, abused black girl confront the burden of parental abuse? It's starkness has no resonance. We cannot comprehend it. How does she cope?' and metaphors and similes 'The heroine begins life as a wounded soldier' Quite often throughout the critique Precious and her life is compared to a soldier and a battlefield. This is good way of talking about her constant struggles as in a way her life is like a constant battlefield.

Heloise describes Precious as a 'true survivor'. Whilst I would agree that Precious is a survivor in the physical sense, her mentality on the other hand is not surviving at least not until towards the end of the book when she starts to turn her life around, but even then she is faced with more set backs, the outcome of which are left to the readers imagination. Precious is by no means 'a survivor of New York City public education' as Heloise states. If precious was a survivor of public education then she wouldn't be illiterate at the start of the book and would not be needing to attend each one teach one classes at the Hotel Theresa.
Heloise has also stated that precious 'holds a degree in the Karma Sutra'. Whilst I do agree with the view that Precious is very sexually aware and Heloise has rightly pointed out that there is an overriding theme of sex throughout the book. The way in which sex is portrayed is negative and to say that Precious holds a degree in the Karma Sutra would imply that Precious has enjoyed her sexual encounters and had them willingly. As anyone who has read the book would know that this is not the case and as far as the reader is aware, all of her experience with sex was forced upon her and has no experience of sex in a pleasurable way.

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