Tuesday, November 18, 2008

PUSH

I must say that this book was a very compelling and graphic. As I was reading this book, I had a hard time convincing myself that this book was a work of fiction. Ironically, I found this book to be equally inspiring as it was unfortunate.

Precious had alot of anger and pain boiling inside of her and it made her confused, aggressive, rude, and doubt her self-worth. And to read about her complete turn around when she started to go to the alternative school ,was a suprise as much as it was inspiring. After going through the terrible things in her life, she was more than committed to bettering herself and the life of her two children.

What really bothered me was when she expressed hate for her father for raping her but at the same time found it to be pleasurable. This was a major conflicting feeling that made Precious confused and hate herself. Having two children by her father, one at twelve and the other at sixteen; being abused, neglected, and molested by her mother; and getting HIV from her father would drive me right over a cliff. Precious was a very strong girl.

Sapphire did a great job transforming the words on the pages to an undeniable, vivid mental image and letting the reader walk in the shoes of Precious.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Songs of Pain

Well, I must say : I'm guilty of liking all those songs. As a listened to the variety of rap, rock,and hip hop selections, I found that there were reoccurring themes of violence, drug use, relationships, crushes, sex, and break-ups. I would say that this songs use pain and those themes to achieve popularity with teenagers and young adults, such as myself. During teenage and young adult years, the processes of finding oneself is achieved by heavily the music you listen to. Most of the music that caters to teenagers and young adults, are those that have the message of conflicting ideas ( such as "Come As You Go"), a sense of urgency, and the "Say and Do Anything attitude". All these messages are some of the obstacles teenagers and young adults face, so composing a song that has these messages gives them a feeling that there is something they can relate to when there is no possibilty to relate to parents or peers.


Four songs stuck out to me: Bleeding Love, You Oughta Know, F..k It, and F.U.R.B. These stuck with me because they were particularily graphic in their description, language, and images. In Bleeding Love, she describes her love by cutting open her veins and bleeding love;it is a very vivid and graphic image, to say the least. In You Oughta Know, there is explicit sexual behavior, profanities, and a frankness in the lyrics that quite honeslty might excite a teenager or young adult rather than make them cringe. The F..k It-F.U.R.B. rebuttal is quite hiliarioius. This back and forth promotes the idea of "getting even" and uses profanity in almost every line as well as sexual behavior. There is alot of emotion, anger, and pain jam-packed in all these songs that it is ALMOST hard to fathom.