In many startling ways “Push” is similar to the narratives we have read, but in others it is significantly different. What is most interesting, however, is how those similarities and differences meet, meld and merge.
The most obvious difference is the language and content of the novel “Push.” Jacobs and Douglass would certainly not have directly confronted issues of incest and rape as Precious does. Jacobs’s mere allusion to rape was considered too racy in her time. 150 years later Sapphire is able to blanket her pages in expletives and shocking content.
Furthermore, Jacobs, Wright, and Douglass’s memoirs had the characteristics of an exercise of the intellect whose well-crafted presentation demonstrated their intellectual equality, thus validating their assertions. The novel “Push” not only uses racy language, but also uses it badly, omitting punctuation and littering the text with incorrect spellings. However, despite the questionable grammar, good readers read between the lines and they hear Precious’s powerful, creative voice, just like we heard that of the more polished Jacobs, Wright and Douglass. It also suggests that something so flawed, can still be beautiful.
And finally, “Push” is fiction, while our other texts have all been autobiographical. How does this change how we read and interpret Sapphire’s text? Is it somehow less real and thus less powerful? If not, what elements of fiction lend this story credibility equal to that of a memoir? And what if this is not about credibility at all? What effect does this narrative technique have on us, as readers?
What may be more interesting are the similarities in the novel “Push” to other course content. For instance, Precious’s assertion that “It’s something about being a nigger ain’t color. This nurse same as me. A lot of black people with nurse cap or big car or light skin same as me but don’t know it” (11). This sounds an awful lot like Trip in “Glory.” After more than 150 years of African-American literature this character type still persists and still carries great resonance. That is a depressing thought — after 150 years of freedom African-Americans still do not see themselves as free. What does that say about our modern society?
Another similarity “Push” shares with our previous texts is stolen childhood. Bearing the burden of slavery Douglass and Jacobs were robbed of their childhoods. Confronted daily with the ravages of slavery they had to grow up early. Bearing the consequences of slavery years after its abolishment Wright’s childhood too was blighted. Precious, the victim of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse since she could remember also experienced little of what most would consider a childhood. Her words “Thas a stupid question, did I ever get to be a chile? I am a chile,” force us to confront what it really means to be a child in such an adult world.
And on a complete side note, the central metaphor of the book appeared in Chapter 1. Lying on the kitchen floor of her meager apartment, beaten and bloody, Precious clings to the words of a kind stranger as she gives birth to her first child at 12 years old: “Push, Precious, you gonna hafta push.” Perhaps this is how we should read this novel. Finding her voice, finding herself and finding her way is going to be like giving birth — ugly, bloody, and beautiful.
