ipl-logo

Examples Of Coming Of Age In The Color Of Water

846 Words4 Pages

In all Coming of age stories the main character will have an era where they grow up and will eventually mature throughout the novel. Many stories are known to have coming-of-age topics such as “To Kill a Mockingbird”, "Romeo And Juliet”, and even “Then End of Everything”. The Color of Water is a perfect example of this. The Color of Water does fit the definition of a coming-of-age story because it has many traits that fit a coming-of-age novel including immaturity during the beginning to growing up throughout the novel, and losing childhood innocence.

We know that Ruth, James' Mom, had a lot of trauma from the past. Her Father was an evil man who was a racist and overcharged his black customers. We also know that Ruth’s father forced her siblings …show more content…

They might say this because a lot of colored people have gone through racism and many different cultures have gone through a lot. However, this is a coming-of-age story because it shows how James might think it's better to be diverse. At first, James believed that it would have been easier for him and his family for everyone to just be one color, one race so nobody would treat each other differently. But James can see that it is a privilege for him to have multiple races of blood in him. He can see both worlds the black and the white ones. He is a black man with a Jewish soul. When he sees Pictures of the holocaust when he looks at the people, he can see his mother and himself in the different women whose children had been traumatized by the nazi soldiers. In the text it states, “As I walked home, holding Mommy’s hand while she fumed, I thought it would be easier if we were just one color, black or white. I didn’t want to be white. My siblings had already instilled the notion of black pride in me. I would have preferred that Mommy were black. Now, as a grown man, I feel privileged to have come from two worlds. My view of the world is not merely that of a black man but that of a black man with something of a Jewish soul. I don’t consider myself Jewish, but when I look at Holocaust photographs of Jewish women whose children have been wrenched from them by Nazi soldiers, the women look like my own mother and I

Show More
Related

Summary Of The Color Of Water By James Mcbride

332 Words | 2 Pages

"The Color Of Water" is a memoir, written by James McBride about a biracial man, his white Jewish mother, their family, and their struggle from the early 1900s till the mid 1900s. The main characters in the memoir are the author and his mother; they tell their stories and alternate chapters throughout the memoir. the memoir begins with the author's mother explaining her earliest memories of her parents, the details of their marriage, and their coming to America. James's life was a chaotic mess, the only order in his life came from his stepfather, who was named hunter, Hunter was a strong good natured man who was the only father figure James had ever known.

Read More

The Memoir: The Color Of Water By James Mcbride

364 Words | 2 Pages

The story The Color of Water is a memoir by a young boy who lives with his 11 black siblings and his white mother. The book was written by James McBride later in his life after he had been successfully raised by his mother Ruth, despite the fact she was the only white person he knew. James credits Ruth with molding him into the excellent man he grew up to be, in his early years he viewed her as unable to understand him but in reality she was trying to do the best she could for him. Thought the memoir James slowly transitions into a stellar young man who takes advantage of the opportunities life hands him. James biological father had died when he was young and therefore James did not have a strong memory of him.

Read More

Rhetorical Analysis Of American Writer And Musician By James Mcbride

429 Words | 2 Pages

James uses metaphors a lot of times, metaphors are used to make items seem symbolic, more so done when it’s used to make them abstract. There is one particular James uses to build on more credibility, “What attracts white…explicit lyrics.” (The Crossover, paragraph 3), while this is stating facts, there’s also an opinion present when concerning that statement. This causes a divide in the entirety of cultures and James is aware of that which also allows him to build more

Read More

A Brief Review Of The Color Of Water By James Mcbride

1099 Words | 5 Pages

The Novel, The Color of Water, written by James McBride is autobiography as a tribute to his mother, Ruth McBride. Born Ruchel Dwajra Zylska on April 1st 1921, in Poland , Ruth McBride Jordan, the mother of James and eleven other children, was born into an Orthodox Jewish family and raised in a violent Southern town and abusive home. At nineteen, she moved into a new life in New York city, where she fell in love with a black Baptist minister named Andrew McBride. James, was born in Brooklyn, New York on September 11, 1957. He grew up in an all black housing projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Read More

Another Holocaust In Elie Wiesel's 'Night'

296 Words | 2 Pages

The quote and the story are very similar like the quote is about how awful the first night was and how bad the holocaust was for the jewish people. It teaches the world to like and respect all beliefs and all the different

Read More

Theme Of The Coming Of Age In Mississippi By Anne Moody

562 Words | 3 Pages

The Coming of Age in Mississippi is a 1968 memoir written by Anne Moody. Anne moody is an African American author and civil rights activists, who wrote about her experience of being black and growing up poor in the countryside of Mississippi. The book concentrates mostly on the experiences of racism and daily struggles from Moody’s perspective, to the hardships of being black during these times of racial discrimination and anguish. The Coming of Age in Mississippi was written in first person, its shows chronologically the events of Moody’s life starting from the earliest memory the young age of four to when the author moved to Washington DC at twenty-four. The style of writing the author chose shaped the book.

Read More

Analysis Of Coming Of Age In Mississippi By Anne Moody

817 Words | 4 Pages

An African-American social reformer, and an abolitionist, named Frederick Douglass once said, “I did not know I was a slave until I found out I couldn’t do the things I wanted.” With these words, Douglass justifies that slavery is lack of freedom. It’s the horrifying feeling as if slaves were being tied up in one place, and the only time they could move is when their owner says so. In this book called, Coming of Age in Mississippi, written by Anne Moody, who happens to be the main character, is about her own autobiography growing up in a community where Negroes did not have the audacity to speak up. Moody’s life consists of many obstacles that impacted her to become a brave person and a successful activist.

Read More

Religion In Elie Wiesel's The Color Of Water

633 Words | 3 Pages

Religion plays a fairly big part in many people’s lives. Ruth in The Color Of Water comes to terms with her religion (to be precise her former religion) through several defining moments including being restricted to do things by her parents, converting to Christianism and finally going back to her old synagogue. Along the way, Ruth gets more and more comfortable in her own skin and with who she is. While being a little child and teenager Ruth got influenced pretty heavily by Judaism.

Read More

The Perils Of Indifference And Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

636 Words | 3 Pages

He informs them of what was going on in the holocaust, while persuading them to change their mindsets to help those who are being treated like animals and being slaughtered or tortured for their satisfaction. To tell people not to just stand by while people get treated unfairly due to race or anything for that matter and stand up to the injustices that people were facing. “Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end.

Read More

Black Men And Public Space By Maya Angelou Analysis

694 Words | 3 Pages

He wrote this piece to express his important opinion about the effect of racism and how he’s viewed as a man of color. He talks about his first encounter of racism when he was young man in college and was assumed to be a mugger or killer just because of skin. “It was in echo of that terrified woman’s footfalls that I first began to know the unwieldy inheritance I’d come into the ability to alter public space in ugly ways.” I feel that the author is trying to connect to his vast audience of people who don’t understand what it is like to a black man in society. Later he contemplated that he rejected or shunned by the white race collectively as a dangerous man.

Read More

The Color Of Water Identity Essay

1170 Words | 5 Pages

“When I asked her if she was white, she’d say, “No. I’m light skinned,” and change the subject again.” (Ch.4, pg.15) Ruth’s changing the topic of racial issues caused even more perplexity and insecurities within James. Because of his uncertainty, it was very difficult for James to decide how he fits into his conservative society. Also, in his community it was only the McBride siblings who seemed to come from the interracial family which made them partially feel like

Read More

Summary Of The Color Of Water By James Mcbride

1102 Words | 5 Pages

James was always confused on his own race during his upbringings. He expressed confusions on his own race towards his mother in many ways. Constantly James was questioning Ruth whether he was black or white. Ruth told James that he was neither but instead he was just a human being.

Read More

Analyzing The Past In James Mcbride's The Color Of Water

728 Words | 3 Pages

In the memoir, The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother, James McBride illustrates this concept when he questions his mother Ruth about her past. 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

Read More

A Letter To My Nephew James Baldwin Analysis

839 Words | 4 Pages

In A Letter to My Nephew, James Baldwin, the now deceased critically acclaimed writer, pens a message to his nephew, also named James. This letter is meant to serve as a caution to him of the harsh realities of being black in the United States. With Baldwin 's rare usage of his nephew 's name in the writing, the letter does not only serve as a letter to his relative, but as a message to black youth that is still needed today. Baldwin wrote this letter at a time where his nephew was going through adolescence, a period where one leaves childhood and inches closer and closer to becoming an adult.

Read More

Ruth Character Analysis

721 Words | 3 Pages

‘God is the color of water. Water doesn’t have a color’”(McBride 51). Ruth is a very wise person. In this excerpt, she teaches her son that skin color doesn’t matter by telling him that God doesn’t have a skin color. Because James is bi-racial, during his childhood he was confused about where he belonged.

Read More

More about Examples Of Coming Of Age In The Color Of Water

Related Topics

Open Document