Analysis Of The Color Of Water By James Mcbride

Award winning author J.K Rowling is quoted saying, “You will never truly know yourself or the strength of your relationship until both have been tested by adversity.” This quote directly relates to The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother. Throughout the memoir, James McBride illustrates his mother, hardships, including being abused by her father, being widowed twice, and overcoming adversity to raise twelve collegiate children. The Color of Water by James Mcbride, retraces his mother’s life as well as reveals his own as he travels through the shadows of his own life in Red Hook, Brooklyn during the time period of black civil rights. The book relives the difficulty of living in this time period through new eyes than expected:

Ruth was a very dynamic character in which she began the memoir as an extremist in keeping her past a secret to her children. James in his youth once asked his mother, Ruth, where she was from and she replied, “God made me,” and changed the subject, uninterested in releasing any personal information (McBride 21). Throughout of the book, the underlying story of Ruth becomes revealed and recreated by James. Ruth becomes more acceptive of her past life, and at the end of the memoir, Ruth was able to tell others about her frightening childhood. On the contrary, James was always very curious and wanted to delve into his mother life to grasp his religious, racial, and social identity. As a child, James was quotes saying, “I asked her if I was black or white. She replied, “You are a human being. Educate yourself or you will be a nobody,” (McBride 91). This shows how James had always desired to know what his racial ethnicity was, but to his mother, race meant nothing compared to education. The Color of Water earns five out of five points in character development because all the characters were described in great detail with descriptive

The tone of the story was clearly indicated throughout the book in an emotional way that touched every reader. The tone of gratification could be heard in the pride of James voice when he writes of his mother. Such can be exampled when James writes the accomplishments of her life and the children she raised, “She married two extraordinary men and raised twelve very creative and talented children…” (Mcbride 274). He continues to write the achievements of her children which she taught to have a strong educational drive and the desire to overcome adversity. The Color of Water had a strong theme of discovering cultural identity carrying throughout the memoir. James purpose of writing this memoir was to find a better understanding of his social and racial background to discover his cultural identity. The use of symbolism is found when Ruth’s bike is referenced. “Mommy rode her bicycle without a care in the world, like nobody was watching,” (McBride 7). The bike was a symbol of racial opinions from the outside world, which did not affect Ruth at all, but that Ruth will continue moving forward until racial equality had been reached. The use of imagery, metaphors, and similes were very apparent and were necessary for the tone of each chapter to distinguish between