Push Blog 2

The role of literacy is very significant in this novel. In the beginning of the novel, Precious is an illiterate teenager that does not even know her alphabet or how to read numbers on a page. At the same time, she wants to evolve into something greater; she just does not know how to do so or the resources that are available to her.

In Push, literacy serves as a means to identity formation. Through what she learns at the Each One Teach One program, she discovers who she is, what is capable of, and what she wants out of life. Precious does through a lot of journaling. The journal becomes such a distinct part of the novel, it evolves into a character. The journal is something that she can always turn to as a way to get her thoughts and feelings out. I believe that one of the reasons that the journal was so effective for Precious is because Ms. Rain would write back to her and force her to think a little bit farther than she had. Before the Each One Teach One program, Precious though that no one cared about her, and in reality she was right. Her mother and father both physically, emotionally, and sexually abused her on a regular basis. Social institutions, such as public education and public health, failed her by not intervening when they should have. Ms. Rain gave her hope and motivation by showing that she cared and boosting Precious’s confidence through the journaling.

Writing served as a means for Precious to express her story and the change in her ability to express herself can be traced throughout the novel. In the beginning of the novel, Precious had trouble saying what she was feeling; she could only really say what happened and give an account of the events that occurred. As the novel progressed, she was able to communicate to the audience how she felt about different things and how things influenced her and her thoughts. For example, when readers are first introduced to Precious, she is giving an account of her physical self and how she planned on writing. Her spelling was awful and she demonstrated no understanding of sentence structure. By the end of the novel, she was spelling many of the words she used correctly and could format a sentence. Precious could use descriptive words when describing a situation and communicate what she was feeling.

All of these are crucial elements to the story, because they demonstrate character development. Through her experiences as a student at the Each One Teach One program, readers see Precious develop as a person, woman, teenager, child, individual and mother. This growth as a person and individual is demonstrated to readers as she moves from being illiterate to literate; what society would consider a waste of time and space to a person that deserves to have investments made in; a woman that wants nothing more than to be a productive member of society. Precious understood that the first step on that journey had to be an education.