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Song Analysis: The Color Of Water By James Mcbride

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In the book “The Color of Water” by James McBride, I chose the song “Slipped Away” by Avril Lavigne for the second chapter. Where James is remembering that his mom would ride a bike around the neighborhood where they lived with her second husband Hunter before he died. This song I think would represent the way Ruth was feeling after her husband died. Because the song says “I miss you, miss you so bad I don't forget you, oh, it's so sad I hope you can hear me I remember it clearly The day you slipped away Was the day I found it won't be the same”. In the chapter this bike she rides is a way to remember him and for her to keep moving on, in a way it wasn’t the same after he died because she was done with love. I know this next choice for …show more content…

Why did you die?”. I think this embodies the way Ruth felt about her brother after he and left and learned about his death. In chapter 11 Ruth remembers her first love Peter, so I chose a song called secret love by Hunter Hayes. Which has a verse that says “When you're living a life that you gotta deny, When you feel how we feel, but you gotta keep lying, It's only gonna mess you up inside”. Ruth loved Peter but in reality couldn’t be with him because of the color of his skin. In chapter 13 Ruth had gone to new York and finally told her aunt that she was pregnant. There her aunt helped her get an abortion so I thought “who you are” BY Jessie J was perfect. There is a lyric where it says “I stare at my reflection in the mirror Why am I doing this to myself? Losing my mind on a tiny error,”. I feel like this is what Ruth was feeling after she had gotten the abortion because, in reality, she couldn’t have had the baby. James started to drugs and fail his classes after his step dad died in 14. I thought of the song Unsteady by X Ambassadors in which it says “Hold Hold on Hold on to me 'Cause I’m a little unsteady A little unsteady Mama, come here Approach, appear, Daddy, I’m alone Cause this house doesn't feel like home”. James would probably relate to this song because his biological dad had died before he was even born and then the man who was his father figure passes away too. I think drugs were his outlet because

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The bike appears to be the reason the Auntie introduces herself to the younger woman, and they end up bonding over it. Auntie says how her bike reminds her of her son David, and she even ends up having a ride on it. This influences the younger woman to name the bike after her son David. Maxine Beneba Clarke's use of

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Ruth tells James about her past although she avoided and ran away from it for many years. She passed on her actions and reactions to her children, especially James, as she formed a family. James learning about his mother's past made him realize that he resembles Ruth in many ways. They both grieved on their own, but how they grieved was similar. Whether it was drugs or a bike ride, they both had their own way to run.

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Ruth’s father was killed by a man named Charles Cluveau. Charles was a serial killer, he was mentally ill, he killed over fifty people by the time he was forty five. One day her father went out to work in the fields of the plantation and he never came back. Her mother had passed away so she didn’t have anyone else besides her father and

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In the book the Color of Water, Hunter Jordan, James ' stepfather, died of a sudden stroke when he was younger. His mother first married a man named Andrew McBride, that was James’ biological dad, but was only alive to see the moment where his mother, Ruth, re-married to Hunter. When he had died each one of them had a different way of grieving. Ruth rode a blue bicycle Hunter had brought in before he died. For example, James explains how his mother rides the bike around everyday and “... what the world thought of her, a nonchalance in the face of what i perceived to be imminent danger from the blacks and whites who disliked her for being a white person in a black world.”

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One example of how Ruth’s sorrow is shown to the reader is early in the story when the narrator introduces Ruth, saying that “Ruth’s arm, linked with Matt’s tightened, he looked at her. Beneath her eyes there was swelling from the three days she had suffered” (111). This introduction to Ruth’s character is able to display her feelings of loss because of the fact that one of the first traits the reader learns about Ruth is that she had cried for three days after the loss of Frank, which does clearly show her sorrow because of the fact that three days is definitely a strangely long time to be crying for, especially since it seems like the entire family, besides her, had already moved on from crying about the loss. Another example of how Ruth is affected by loss is shown the night of Richard’s murder when Matt reflects on how “he believed Ruth knew... When Ruth said good night she looked at his face, and he felt she could see see in his eyes the gun, and the night he was going to” (116-117).

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