James McBride is the son of Ruth McBride,and he tells the story of how he struggled to find out his racial identity through his Mom who wouldn’t tell him. James is a 15 year old boy and I’d say that his health is going pretty bad since he smokes and drinks. James was born in Brooklyn, New York to Dennis and Ruth McBride, his father deceased before he was born. His mother later married a man names Hunter Jordan and they added 4 for kids to the 8 she already had.
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.
James observed that all the mothers of his friends had parents who looked similar (skin tone) and became curious because his mother had a different skin color than him. When he asked Ruth all of his questions, she consistently refused to give any answers. This made James’s need to know increase. Another change that James went through
The Color of Water, a memoir written by James McBride, describes the struggle James experienced growing up in a poor family with eleven other siblings while going through a racial identity crisis. Throughout the book, the chapters alternate from James’ point of view to his mother’s point of view, both individuals accounting their difficult childhoods. These different perspectives come together and make one lucid piece of writing. During the course of the book, the reader will learn that James encountered many obstacles in his life. However, these difficulties molded James and made him grow as an individual.
In James McBride's memoir, The Color of Water, he relates the narrative of his struggle to understand and accept himself as a multiracial person dealing with his mother's terrible past. McBride's analysis of these themes demonstrates that self-awareness and family harmony are founded on embracing and reconciling one's many aspects of heritage. The book reveals, utilizing his experiences and his mother Ruth's observations, that personal and familial peace can only be attained by completely recognizing one's mixed heritage. McBride's struggle with his racial identity is an important aspect of his quest to understand himself. His mother's ambiguous responses to his refer to race, such as her statement, "You are a human being."
In McBride’s The Color of Water, James McBride the narrator tells a story of his own past and his mother, Ruth McBride’s past. Throughout the book James was conflicted with his racial identity due to being half African-American and half Jewish and the environment and society in the 1960s. On the other hand, James’s mother Ruth was also conflicted in finding her own racial identity, family and religion.
In the Color of Water, by James McBride, James learns an important lesson as his story progresses. In chapter 22, he meets Aubrey Rubenstein, who teaches him an important lesson. Aubrey teaches James about Suffolk and the Jewish community. For example, James learns about the pain of Hudis Shilsky which he then states “a new pain and a new awareness were born inside me” (p. 229). through Aubrey, James learn about his Jewish past which he then relates to himself.
In The Color of Water James went on a completely
In the memoir, The Color of Water, McBride uses events from his childhood to explain why his adulthood turned out the way it did. McBride went through many things in his childhood. McBride had eleven other siblings, and he was the eighth one. From him losing his father, to his mother never really recovering from his death. That is when everything started going downhill for him.
James McBride’s The Color of Water, is a memoir that weaves the story of his Polish mother’s struggle to raise twelve mulatto children in Brooklyn’s Red Hook housing projects with his own conflicting identity crisis. The book's narrator alternates between James himself and his mother Ruth McBride, through interviews he’s done with her. The story starts off narrated by Ruth in which she tells her son some of the details of her early childhood and family dynamic. She reveals to James, that she was born in Poland to an Orthodox-Jewish family on on April 1, 1921.
In The Color of Water by James McBride, James’s Mother, Ruth’s unique perspective as a mother of black children though being white herself and a convert from Judaism to Christianity works to shape James's understanding of his identity and guides him through discovery of himself. Despite their differences in race and religion, James and Ruth share a strong connection that allows James to find his own identity, helping him to be who he wants to be and shape his own life. The memoir's story mainly focuses on the struggles and upbringing of James McBride, a black man from Brooklyn, and his white mother, a former orthodox jew turned Christian from Virginia who moved to New York. The memoir tells the stories about each one of them and how they would
James’s mother plays a paramount role towards James’s perspective on the
The author’s main purpose throughout the novel is to tell the story of his mother Ruth, who was born Jewish and married an African American man in New York, and to relate the courage it required for her to have an interracial marriage and children which such racial tension going around. With the novel transitioning to the first person, being James, and the third person, being his mother Ruth, James major conflict is the struggle to come to terms with his racial identity and background. Protagonists: James McBride: Being our main character as well as our narrator of this piece, James describes precise moments having to do with his own personal life in order to bring highlight to his mother Ruth’s life as well. Like his father, McBride has talents for being a writer, journalist, jazz musician, and composer. Similar to his
“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
This proves that although James is trying to or into his family, his emotion(s) put a major roadblock in his path. Another reason that supports this idea is on page 4. While and after the kitten is dying, he lets his emotions pour over and doesn’t care what his family sees of him, only about the dead kitten.
