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Using personal narrative to reflect on identity
Using personal narrative to reflect on identity
Using personal narrative to reflect on identity
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In the story The color of Water, by James McBride, James learns a lot from a new person. In chapter 22, James meets a character named Aubrey Rubenstein. They talk for a while. Rubenstein gives James a lot of knowledge that he will learn from. To begin with, James first meets Aubrey Rubenstein on a synagogue’s steps.
The different shades of blue also illustrates the depth of the water, as the blue gets darker it represents the bottom, and as it gets lighter the representation of being closer to the surface is presented. The overall composition of
“I hated Martin more than others,because of his belly” Nick Vaca says in his story, Martin, which is about how the author reenacts the memory with visual language and specific word choices to give a picture on what he has a lasting impression on, which is an encounter with a boy named Martin. It became evident that the narrator, seemed to remember the scene perfectly, which shows how he still remembers it, which might indicate some sort of mark or impression left after experiencing the encounter. Near the end of the book, Nick might of seen that he had the wrong idea about Martin, which could of let his past experience affect his eyes metaphorically on Martin. Nick starts off the story with the first details, but more importantly, shows his point of view. Before he has his first interaction with the name Martin, he might of already have a point of view on where he lives, as it was not very wealthy.
"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.
In The Color of Water, author James McBride writes both his autobiography and a tribute to the life of his mother, Ruth McBride. Ruth came to America when she was a young girl in a family of Polish Jewish immigrants. Ruth married Andrew Dennis McBride, a black man from North Carolina. James's childhood was spent in a chaotic household of twelve children who had neither the time nor the outlet to ponder questions of race and identity. Ruth did not want to discuss the painful details of her early family life, when her abusive father Tateh lorded over her sweet-tempered and meek mother Mameh.
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.
The drum major’s voice rings out, sharp and clear in the tense silence. We hear her call us to set, and we freeze. The band is across the field, standing a block, every member leaning forward, forming the same angle towards the ground. We are lined up from the 35 yard line to the 45, lying on the wet grass as if we are asleep. We are perfectly still, then suddenly we rise, kicking our legs in unison.
“The Blue Water Djinn” by Tea Obreht is about the loss of innocence of Jack with the transition into adolescence. Jack begins the story believing in the water djinn, a spirit that inhabits the earth according to Muslim demonology, which Fawad had told him about, to keep him out of trouble. As the story progresses, Jack encounters different situations. Jack is exposed to the details of the Frenchman's death. When Jack explores the abandoned ship supposedly home the water djinn, he is met with the realization that all is not as he was told upon finding, in place of the water djinn, an innocent sea turtle trapped in a tide pool desperately trying to escape.
As the title of the novel suggests, the color yellow is one of the largest and most important symbols in A Yellow Raft in Blue Water. The color’s effects can best be seen in Rayona with the yellow raft at Bearpaw Lake, but can also be seen in Christine and Ida’s stories. The color yellow clarifies many of the novel's themes, including how each individual perceives the same situation differently, how reality shatters illusions, and how characters seek feelings of internal peace and permanence. Native Americans find symbolism in many everyday objects, including colors. They believe yellow is an opposing symbol, on one hand it denotes happiness, joy, and content, but on the other it is a color of cowardice, deceit, and hurt.
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.
In the above poem Ayim tries to fit in her hyphenated/two part identity into one inseparable whole. Although she states that: “[her] fatherland is Ghana, [her] mother tongue is German” (Ayim, Blues in Black and White 46), her Afro-German identity is adaptive to and inclusive in her surroundings: “I have been living and working in West Berlin and feel more at home in this city than anywhere else” (Blues in Black and White 47). However, racism causes her to feel estranged even after the unity of the two Germanys: “The new “We” in “this our country”—Chancellor Kohl’s favorite expression—did not and does not have a place for everyone” (Blues in Black and White 48). Not all immigrants are treated on equal footing. Some, including Black Germans of course, are categorized as foreigners “and cannot be real Germans” (Blues in Black and White 51).
‘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.
“The Color of Water” by James McBride, elucidates his pursuit for his identity and self-questioning that derives from his biracial family. McBride’s white mother Ruth as a Jewish seek to find love outside of her house because of her disparaging childhood. The love and warmth that she always longed from her family, was finally founded in the African American community, where she made her large family of twelve kids with the two men who she married. James was able to define his identity through the truth of his mother’s suffer and sacrifices that she left behind in order to create a better life for her children and herself. As a boy, James was always in a dubiety of his unique family and the confusion of his color which was differ than
The Color of Water Ruth McBride has a system of values and ethics that she teachers to her children through her experiences and other situations. There are a lot of categorizable values she teaches but the main ones include her views on education, religion, and race. Where education is concerned Ruth constantly pushes her kids to academic excellence. Ruth also influenced how her children thought and acted when faced with different racial situations that they are placed in. Ruth taught her children various values that mainly had positive effects and impacted their lives.
The house stops spinning and trembling. A sudden thud and everything becomes still. Dorothy stands up, exits her room and approaches the front door. She goes for the handle, turns it, slightly spies through the door, to finally open it. A full world of bright and vivid colours displays in front of her.
