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Analysis Of The Book ' The Color Of Water '

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Aristotle once theorized, “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” The book, “The Color of Water” describes the lives of James and Ruth McBride and their journeys to find this happiness. Both of these characters, among other characters in the book struggled for the majority of their lives with the issues of race. They felt as if they were caught between two different worlds; the world of blacks and the world of whites. These struggles left all of the characters feeling forlorn. In McBride’s memoir it is made clear that in order to find happiness, the characters must first be able to confront and then overcome the racial divisions that were so prominent in their lives.
Racial divisions had always been a source of conflict for Ruth. Her struggles began as a young child and followed her into her adulthood. She felt the pressures from racial divisions at her school and in her very own home. The internal conflict that Ruth felt regarding race stemmed from the hatred that she had experienced with the white people from her childhood and the acceptance that Ruth had felt from the black people she had encountered.
In chapter nine Ruth was discussing the type of schooling she had received as a child. In her small town they had three schools, each designated to a group; whites, blacks, and Jews. According to Ruth, “, “The Jewish school didn’t really count for the white folk’s so [she] attended the white school” (page 61).She

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