FREE ESSAY ON PRECIOUSNESS

PRECIOUSNESS

Preciousness is a story that goes beyond the struggles of a teen-aged girl's life, but it
also portrays themes of basic life. Themes like, "letting go" and "cultural differences"
apply to almost all people in one way or another. For that reason, Preciousness is not
just a story about a young girl's life, but it's a story about all of our lives.
Throughout the story, the reader is presented with a series of conflicts the girl faces.
Her main problem was that she had a problem with men and boys. She felt that they were
evil and only wanted one thing. I feel that she lived in her own world, where she made
all the rules. "...she swallowed her coffee which the maid, scratching herself in the
gloom of the kitchen, had reheated. She scarcely touched the bread which the butter
failed to soften."1 This was extremely unhealthy for her, physically and mentally. Not
eating healthily will make a person weak and can lead to many diseases. She did this to
have men and boys avoid her, which was also unhealthy. Man or woman, one cannot avoid
life and its people. 
I don't feel it is possible to be psychologically fit if a person cannot interact with a
certain group because of a fear they have. Being scared of a certain person in that group
is normal, but the entire group is a bit extreme. Life is a learning experience, but you
can't fully experience life if you avoid certain things in it. One has to face reality at
some point in life, it can be done the easy way, by accepting reality, or done the hard
way, by denying the truth. The main character of the story decided that it would be
better if she did things the hard way.
The rising action, when the two boys were approaching here on an early morning, lead to a
major problem. At the climax, the two boys groped the girl. At that moment, her bubble,
malignantly protecting her from the world of reality, exploded. The destruction of her
bubble led to an amazing revelation that changed her life. She was no longer a girl, but
a young woman. I feel that this was when she started accepting the truth about life and
about whom she had become. She then understood that you couldn't avoid life.
I think that there was more than one main theme in this story. Prejudice, fear, and hate
are three themes that can be closely linked together. These factors play a large role in
the story and in our lives. Like the girl in the story, we tend to make assumptions about
other people before we actually know it's true. The main character assumes that all men
and boys want that one thing. She feels that it is her place to classify other people, in
this case, men. "Afraid they would "say something to her," would look her up and down."2
Even though the men didn't care about her, she still had a fear of them. 
People fear what they don't understand and have no control over. The girl had no control
over the men and boys, so she feared what they might say or do to her. She is fearful of
putting trust into men, scared of how they might take advantage of that trust. As the
days built up, she developed a hatred of men. She knew that they "knew." I believe that
neither side really knew anything truly significant about each other. The girl couldn't
have known what the men knew and what they were thinking. The men probably didn't know
much about the girl either. I think that the girl surrounded herself in a bubble that was
much worse than reality.
Repression was also a very considerable theme. For the whole time, she repressed her true
self. She tried to hide what she was becoming, which was a woman. She had to learn to let
go of her childhood and start accepting the responsibilities of being older and more
mature. This is something everyone has either gone through, is going through, or will go
through in life. It's a force of nature, like a hurricane or earthquake. It happens when
it wants to, all we can do is try to be as prepared for it as possible. There is nothing
that can hold it back. This force will consume the old personality and bring out a new,
more experienced personality. It's part of the life process and everyone has their turn.
"Until, just as a person grows fat, she ceased, without knowing through which process, to
be precious."3 This quote shows that she had changed. Sometimes in life, we don't realize
we are changing, until the changing process is all done. The girl had changed, but she
didn't want to face the realization of it, so she never realized that she had changed.
The quote, "I need some new shoes!" showed that she had finally accepted her womanhood.
She admitted that her shoes made too much noise and a woman can't where those kind of
shoes.
Preciousness is a story about life. Not just the girl's life, but also all of our lives
in general. Everyone, at some point in life, has felt uneasy about being around certain
people. We all have changed from a carefree child to an adult who has many
responsibilities. We all carried a precious jewel of innocence as a child, but some of us
have carelessly given them away or had it taken away. Prejudice, fear, and hate are
factors in life that the majority of people have to face and overcome. The fact that the
author didn't give the girl a name made it obvious that the girl's problems could be
applied to the reader, whether they are male or female.
Bibliography
Quotes Cited from Preciousness
1. Page 1, third paragragh
2. Page 1, third paragraph
3. Page 8, last paragraph