American Dream?

I do not believe that this is supposed to be a story about a girl achieving the American dream or anything close to that.  When people speak of the American dream they are referring to becoming successful and owning a house in a nice neighborhood.  Precious never really ends up successful at the end of the story she is just in a better position to become successful than she was at the beginning.  I see this as a story of both hope and despair, but not strictly one or the other.  This is definitely a story of hope because she starts out living with parents who abuse her and treat her like a slave.  She also starts out with very little education and no incentive to learn.  Throughout the book she learns to read and write, she learns that she plays a major role in the life of her children, and she builds relationships with people her own age and has a positive role model in her life now that Ms. Rain is her teacher.  When Precious speaks of her baby Abdul she says, "I'm gonna make sure your smart when you grow up." She says this because she feels that she is stupid and wants her children to become educated and to not be like herself.  By the end of the book she understands that she can amount to something as long as she stays on the right path.  This is also a story of despair due to the fact that at the end of the book nothing is really resolved.  Precious still lives at the halfway house, she still hasn't scored high enough on the test to get her G.E.D., and she has H.I.V. Throughout the whole book it describes how she was abused for her entire life, and ended up getting H.I.V.  The ending is not too hopeful because even though Abdul's life will be better than hers, she still has a hard life ahead of her and will most likely die within a few years due to the disease she contracted.  The ending is bittersweet because there is more hope than there was in the beginning, but there is still a lot of despair and doubt about Precious.