Precious and Dana seem like they are very different, and in many ways they are. Dana is educated, sophisticated, married to a good man, and generally is very happy and content, until she begins to go back in time. Precious, on the other hand, is abused, illiterate, a two-time mother, and pretty much on her own and cast adrift at a very young age. At first glance, they could not be more different, and their voices are different two. Dana writes with style and purpose, while Precious writes with passion and ignorance, so much so that it is sometimes difficult to read her words. Dana thinks, "I turned and walked away from the arguing children, feeling tired and disgusted" (Butler 99). However, they both live through very harrowing experiences that leave them emotionally and physically scarred, and that is one of the things that tie these two women together.
             Another commonality is that they both suffer at the hands of people in their lives. Dana, when she goes back in time, suffers beatings and other indignities while she is in the past, and she actually commits a murder to save herself. Precious suffers at the hands of both her mother and father, who sexually abuse her and allow that abuse to continue, and she suffers physically because she has two children by her father. Therefore, they are both victims of other people in the novels, and that is another tie that binds them together.
             One of the biggest differences between Dana and Precious is their education. Dana is a college graduate and a professional, while Precious is functionally illiterate at the beginning of the book. She does get help, and she does learn to read and write, and even starts writing poetry, but she is not as educated or as sophisticated as Dana, and that shows in her voice in the novel. She represents the black children of the ghetto who have to be street savvy and not book savvy, while Dana represents the blacks who have attempted to get out of the...