Faith In James Mcbride's The Color Of Water

According to Brenda Shoshanna, an author and psychologist, “Unless we base our sense of identity upon the truth of who we are, it is impossible to attain true happiness” Everyone on Earth has their own unique identity, and if they do not have an identity they will always be struggling to find it. In The Color of Water by James McBride, the author tries to understand his mother’s identity in hopes that it will help him find his own as well. After learning his mother’s life story and going back to her hometown, James finds that Ruth’s family made the most impact on her identity because of her hypocritical father, kind mother, and her evasive siblings.

* James notices that his mother’s skin color than his friends’ mothers’ skin color are different, so Ruth tells him “Who cares about your friends’ mothers’ skin color? Just educate your mind.”

In The Color of Water by James McBride there are many conflicts that can be found involving Man vs Society. Throughout the book there is a lot of discrimination between the main characters and society that, Ruth and James both struggled with. Ruth grew up in a small town in Virginia learning the ways of an Orthodox Jew. She was not accepted by the society that she lived in, in her early life because she was Jewish. Ruth also had a lot of family problems that she escaped from when she moved to New York and converted to Christianity. Ruth ended up married to a black man named Dennis but once he died she remarried Hunter Jordan. Ruth was also not accepted by her society because she lived in Brooklyn raising 12 children of the opposite race as her. James is one of her sons and at one point in his life rebels against his society because he is upset about his stepfather’s death and doesn’t care about being successful. Throughout the book the conflict, Man vs. Society deals with a lot of racial discrimination. The society that James and Ruth are living in discriminate against their race, religion and decisions.

James McBride 's memoir, The Color of Water, demonstrates a man 's search for identity and a sense of self that derives from his multiracial family. His white mother, Ruth 's abusive childhood as a Jew led her to search for acceptance in the African American community, where she made her large family from the two men she marries. James defines his identity by truth of his mother 's pain and exceptionality, through the family she creates and the life she leaves behind. As a boy, James questions his unique family and color through his confusion of issues of race. Later in his life, as an adolescent, his racial perplexity results in James hiding from his emotions, relying only on the anger he felt against the world. It is

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.

James grew up as a black child living in a black neighborhood with a white mother during one of history’s biggest era’s for civil rights movements. The title “The Color of Water” correlates to the issues about religion and race that occur in the book with major characters such as Ruth and James. The aspects that had the most significant impact on James’ identity is environment because of the racist and segregated times, the poor neighborhood he was raised in and his mother, Ruth.

The Color of Water, by James McBride, is a capturing memoir which contains meaningful quotations to represent a bigger theme. In my opinion, the major theme in this book is "The Search For Identity". This is because, throughout the entire memoir, there have been multiple occasions where the identity of a certain character was unknown. American society is known to connote freedom in some sort of way, and in this case through the expression of individuality. Ruth Shilsky, James McBride's mother, was a Jewish immigrant who arrived in America for freedom and a chance for a better life. Like many other immigrants, Ruth wished to express her individuality in this vast country. However, her Jewish heritage handicaps her from doing what she feels

James McBride's memoir, The Color of Water, demonstrates a man's search for identity and a sense of self that derives from his multiracial family. His white mother, Ruth's abusive childhood as a Jew led her to search for acceptance in the African American community, where she made her large family from the two men she marries. James defines his identity by truth of his mother's pain and exceptionality, through the family she creates and the life she leaves behind. As a boy, James questions his unique family and color through his confusion of issues of race. Later in his life, as an adolescent, his racial perplexity results in James hiding from his emotions, relying only on the anger he felt against the

When Rachel Shilsky, now Ruth Mcbride, was a young girl, her father taught her how religion was one of the most important things in her life because “ every evening after supper Tateh would sit” her “ and Sam down and make us study the Old Testament” (McBride 61). She instilled this value into her children by taking them to her church every week on Sunday because she was taught how important it was. She would take them on the subway to The

In The Color of Water, author James McBride writes both his autobiography and a tribute to the life of his mother, Ruth McBride. In the memoirs of the author’s mother and of himself, they constantly face discrimination from their race in certain neighborhoods and of their religious beliefs. The trials and tribulations faced by these two characters have taught readers universally that everyone faces difficulties in life, but they can all be surmounted.

At the beginning of The Color of Water, James McBride’s mother Ruth goes on to introduce particular aspects about her upbringing. She mentions how she grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family and begins to describe both her parents. Ruth’s father was a very cold and hard individual who didn’t care too much for his children’s overall well-being, while her mother was very sweet and kind in nature. She also goes on to talk about how her family was originally from Poland but decided to move to the United States from fear of oppression from the Russian government. Along with outside forces that proved to be a problem for Ruth’s family were similarities in oppressive behaviors in their family as well. Since Ruth’s family were Orthodox Jews,

“I'm dead. You want me to talk about my family and here I been dead to them for fifty years.” - Ruth McBride Jordan. Ruth McBride Jordan is a strong Polish Jewish woman with 12 children who firmly believes in work, school, and religion. Ruth undergoes many different changes within both herself and her family throughout The Color of Water, causing her to change her name 3 times in a way of reviving herself. These 3 names are significant with respect to her identity and her life because they represent a time in her life where she tried to change in order to make her it better. These name changes lead up to a manageable time of life for Ruth. The name Ruchel Dwarja Zylska is significant because it represents her when she was young naive girl who didn't understand the aspects of life. The second name, Rachel Deborah Shilsky, represents a time in her life where she tried to change her ways in order to fit in. The final name, Ruth McBride Jordan, stands for a time when she finally moves on with life and leaves behind all of the toxic things that once troubled her.

In The Color of Water, James writes how his mother faced many hardships throughout her life. Ruth McBride Jordan, James’ mother, was a foreign immigrant who came from poland. As a young jewish girl, ruth faced many adversities throughout her early stages of life. The racism and racial prejudice really hit Ruth hard from the first moment she moved to the United States of America. Ruth is made fun of and shunned for being a small jewish girl in school. Also, ruth has seen the worst of racism through all the African Americans who visit her fathers store. She watched the Ku Klux Klan visit the ghetto towns of Virginia and terrorize the whole black community. Then later on in her life, Ruth is forced to run away to New York for an abortion after getting pregnant from her African American boyfriend whose life was in extreme danger during that period in time. Ruth then falls in love and marries Andrew Dennis McBride The only way for ruth to somewhat get away from racism is to leave the white world behind and adapt the the black world. She chose to do this because the white community was not pro interracial marriages at that time. Also, the black community did not judge Ruth and was very accepting of her, despite her being

In The Color of Water James McBride struggles to discover who he truly was as his mother explains to him the difficulties that she had to overcome as a white, Jewish woman and later on marrying a black

In The Color of Water by James McBride he faces plenty of obstacles in his life. One that I think was very important during his childhood is in chapter 14 where makes a few bad choices after his stepfather, Hunter Jordan, dies. Since James didn't get to know his biological father, Hunter was the closest he ever came to having one. He makes it clear that his family loved Hunter and when he died they were all devastated but none as much as their mother. It's safe to say she wasn't the same and that can be seen when McBride says "She sent us off to school and tried to maintain her crazy house as usual, ranting about this and that, but the fire was gone" (McBride, 137). I think his mother's behavior no doubt had some effect on the way he acted.