PRECIOUS

Set in Harlem in 1987, it is the story of Claireece “Precious” Jones, a sixteen-year-old African-American girl born into a life no one would want. She’s pregnant for the second time by her absent father; at home, she must wait hand and foot on her mother, a poisonously angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is a place of chaos, and Precious has reached the ninth grade with good marks and an awful secret: she can neither read nor write. Precious may sometimes be down, but she is never out.

Beneath her impassive expression is a watchful, curious young woman with an inchoate but unshakeable sense that other possibilities exist for her. Threatened with expulsion, Precious is offered the chance to transfer to an alternative school, Each One/Teach One. Precious doesn’t know the meaning of “alternative,” but her instincts tell her this is the chance she has been waiting for. In the literacy workshop taught by the patient yet firm Ms. Rain, Precious begins a journey that will lead her from darkness, pain and powerlessness to light, love and self-determination.

Students' correction  

(Victoire, Ines, Blanca, Laura, Marina, Carmen, Anthony)

1) CONTEXT + SUMMARY 

The passage was extracted from “Precious”, a movie adaptation by Geoffrey S. Fletcher of the 1996 novel “Push”. Precious is a 2009 drama film which won a lot awards.  This story deals with the hard life of a sixteen years old young girl, Claireece Precious Jones who lives in Harlem, New York with her abusive mother, Mary. In the 1980's, Harlem was a ghetto, a disadvantaged neighborhood where Precious wasn' t proud of it. She dropped out of school when she got pregnant for the second time by her father. At home she  is emotionally and physically abused by her bossy mother who is oblivious to her suffering. In the text, She is having a go at her daughter al the time. Precious is sent to an alternative school because she lags behind in class.This alternative school system provides drop-outs with an opportunity to succeed.  She is locked out of society by her learning difficulties, her illiteracy and her physical appearance.  This very ordinary person does her best to achieve something.  

CONTEXT : the film is set in harlem in the 1980s. Harlem was known as the most dangerous and drug-infested area of New York, it was a high-crime neighbourhood .  People from low class backgrounds lived in dilapidated buildings. In the 1990s, the district was revitalized. Harlem was mostly black because in the years between 1900 and 1930, nearly 2 million blacks left the Southern states, boarding railroads to the North. These migrants saw in the rising economy of the Northern states the hope of improving their standard of living and the possibility of assimilating into the mainstream of American society. Yet, the economic reality and the miserable housing conditions denied them  opportunities to climb up the social ladder. Harlem in New York, the South Side of Chicago and similar areas of Detroit and Philadelphia all became staging grounds in what was hoped to be the first step toward assimilation into Northern life.

THE EXPLICIT:

The author chose a first-person narrative because the viewer feels emotionally involved + he identifies with her.

It is the langage of a real life, the text is written in the way she talks ; that’s why there are swearwords and misspellings . The language is coarse and colloquial. This melodramatic scene is told from a realistic perspective. The author’s strategy is to use precious’ words to tell her story as if the text was a diary.

Precious was out of school for a year because she was pegnant with her father’s child and she had to bring her child up

Her classmates make fun of her. They laugh when she answers back to the teacher. She is being disrespectful

It reveals that she did not get on well with the other classmates :; she was the laughing stock of the class

Precious dreams of a better life and a decent education. However, she seems to be overoptimistic. She dreams of “breaking through” but it mostly wshful thinking.

The implicit: The message of the text

The author achieves great realism in the novel, engaging impactful and real issues such as African Americans in Harlem, teen pregnancy, students droping out of school…Precious has no friends, is lonely and is locked out for being illetrate and overweight. Her physical and psicological appeareance make her fragile to the rest because she is different and goes against the mainstream society and it’s stereotypes. The Young girls embodies the counter exemple of self-made man and hard work for being somobedy in the society of the future. Nowadays having studies and being sleem are synonimes of success, so int’s the contrary of what Precious represents.

The text makes you reflect about goals in life. Precious would like to be a happy and succesfully woman but the only aim she has is to survive because of her life conditions.

THE IMPLICIT: MESSAGES OF THE TEXT  

1. The novel raises different sensitive issues : the social integration of pupils with learning difficulties + the relationship between education and social class (Harlem was one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York in the 1980s) + teen pregnancy.. Precious is pregnant for the second time, and when she was twelve she had a baby by her father. It stands to reason that a teenager is not mature enough to raise children. Those children born from teenagers may not receive a good education or may live in poverty. Dropping out of school is another key theme in the novel. Precious thinks she is a good student but she has got learning difficulties:  she skipped class too often, so now she’s illiterate and is on the ninth grade even if she should be on the eleventh grade. The novel wants to focus on the consequences of truancy. “Students who are frequently absent from school are more likely to drop out, which leads to joblessness, crime, and prison. So, this novel strikes for its gripping realism.

2. Precious is locked by her illiteracy because it prevents her from learning and from advancing in school; all the pages look alike to her. That’s why she doesn’t want to participate in class, and she becomes very nervous and misbehaves when she has to do it. That’s the way she protects herself. Also, she is locked by her physical appearance, she’s obese, she’s victim of many jokes because of her body. Furthermore, she’s obsessed by the color of her skin. She would have preferred to be white, and she dreams of a white boyfriend. So, Precious has an inferiority complex because of her illiteracy and her physical appearance, what makes that she doesn’t interact with her classmates.

3. I don’t think there’s a strict link between truancy and social background. Even in the highest social backgrounds, pupils skip class. It’s not a link between social background and school, but between education and school. A teenager may have been elevated in a rich family, and practice truancy too because his parents because his parents have not taught the interest of studying. What matters is the importance that the parents give to school. A boy may have been raised in a poor neighborhood and being a good student because his parents taught them the value of hard work.

4. The novel also raises the issue  teen pregnancy. In fact is the second time that Precious has been pregnant by her father. She has also to skip class to take care of her children and she is upset. She is going through a hard time. She is caught up in a vivious circle. If she plays truant they is likely to be sentenced to 6 months’ imprisonment and it will be hard to find a job. She obviously dropped the rape charge against her father because she was too young and she was afraid of her mother.

5.Precious is locked out by his illiteracy and physical appearance because she doesn’t want to take off her jacket, she also sit in the last row because she is ashamed of herself for her appearance and for his illiteracy. She prefered to laugh at her teacher that recognized that she doesn’t know how toPrecious  read numbers.

6.Precious embodies the counter-example of success because she is fat, black, she is a teen pregnant, she comes from a low social background: Harlem, her life is very hard: she is abused by her father, she has an abusive mother, she is mother of a child with Down Syndrome, she ugly, she is overweight. She doesn’t represent the American woman that we see in movies. Precious embodies the counter-example of success because the author is revising the myth of the self-made man, pushing students to try their hardest to make something of themselves and succeed.

This novel aims to show the alienation and social isolation of the African Americans in Harlem, the scarcity of ressources they livein.  The children are the victims of their parents’ irresponsible behaviour. This indifference for their studies make the students drop out the school and play truant. They are demotivated. Like  Precious, many children are the product of the incestous rape are completely unequipped to function as productive and self-supporting members of society , though no fault of their own. Some of us believes that our society owes something to these children. She’s an overweight pregnant teen trying to have an education despite every social obstacle imaginable. Precious’ daily interactions with her mother are difficult to watch, but not unlike those we hear about from clients with PTSD and dissociative disorders. In addition, she is vulnerable to revictimization. It’s certainly due to her submissive body language and lack of confidence