ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how Push by Sapphire represents the body of an incestuously abused adolescent. The novel depicts Precious Jones's race, body size, and pregnancy as monstrous. By probing the qualities of the horror Precious's body incites, the chapter exposes the power at play in such representations, and shows how politically motivated writers like Sapphire may work within the tradition of adolescent fiction to challenge such views. It explores how potential sources of power can be evoked, and the implications of such uses of power. The chapter examines the ways a politically motivated author, Sapphire, seeks to expose the injustices she sees in the wider society by inscribing it onto the adolescent body. It concludes Precious's partial return to the social order through her struggles to become literate and questioning how much one can generalise from Sapphire's representation of this monstrous, young body to wider debates on the nature of adolescence.
