Accepting Change In William Gibson's The Miracle Worker

As has been mentioned, James formed an imaginary version of himself, not only he was not able to express himself, but also he was not free as his imaginary version was. “I’d lock myself in the bathroom and spend long hours playing with him…I’d stared at him, Make faces at him and order him around…Unlike my siblings, he had no opinions, he would listen to me” (McBride 90). Furthermore, James may perhaps shout at the boy, mistreatment him verbally and the boy could not do anything about it. James mirror image would not judge him for anything whereas his family did. As a result, James did not feel too comfortable with his siblings making amusing comments on him. Therefore, his only alternative to run away was talking to himself in the bathroom’s mirror.

James retorts, " I never knew who I was. It wasn 't ' so much of a question of searching for myself as it was my own decisions not to look." It was only when James uncovers the life of his mother does he begin to understand the complexity within himself, noting that, "the uncertainty that lived inside me began to dissipate; the ache that the little boy who stared in the mirror felt was gone." By uncovering Ruth 's earlier life, James could understand his own singularity, thus creating the identity he sought his life to achieve.

This, of course, spawns another problem. With an author who is only concerned with showing the reader how it affected himself, you are deprived of what you really want to know about a given character. James has eleven brothers and sisters, all of which have something to add to the story, and yet the exposition given to each of them is far from satisfactory. Much more detail could have been given on what they thought of their mother, how each of them found out about her, who teaches and lives the motto "Don't tell anyone your business." For this reason, the children have the challenge of digging up the truth about their mother, and James takes it to the next level, by writing a book.

James life, causes him to struggle with his self-actualization because he does not know who he is or his true identity. However, because he knows so little about his own life, he is led to ask questions and find out answers. “Yet I myself had no idea who I was. I loved my mother yet I looked nothing like her. Neither did I look like the role-models in my life” (91). The only way he figures out who he is, is by asking questions and finding bits and pieces of information. He struggles greatly with himself, and the only way for him to know himself is to know his mother. This gets back to the idea that the parallelism between him and his mother, or chapters 9 and 10, helps him in his

This is fueled by, not only the changing emotions that teenagers typically endure, but also by the death of his stepfather, whom he saw as his own father. After his death, James cannot bear to see his mother suffer, for she no longer knows how to control the dynamics of the family and "wandered in an emotional stupor for nearly a year." James instead turns to alcohol and drugs, dropping out of school to play music and go around with his friends, which James refers to as "my own process of running, emotionally disconnecting myself from her, as if by doing to I could keep her suffering from touching me." Instead of turning to his family and becoming "the king in the house, the oldest kid," James "spent as much time away from home as possible… absolve[ing] [himself] of all responsibility…" As a result, Ruth sends James to live with his older half sister and her husband, in an attempt to straighten her out her son's life. James distracts himself with the life he found there, spending the summers on a street corner with his half sister's husband, Big Richard, whom he adores, and the unique men that frequented the area. During these summers, James discovers "[He] could hide. No one knew [him]. No one knew [his] past, [his] white mother, [his] dead father, nothing. It was perfect. [His] problems seemed far, far away." Instead of facing the realities of loss and anger in his family, James seeks distractions

Every person experiences feelings. Whether they are hate, jealousy, sadness, and joy. One of the main feelings expressed in the play, is jealousy. Jealousy is a very important emotion, this is because it can make people who are jealous of one another to do things they never imagined themselves to do. The thing that comes with jealousy is a rivalry, if you are jealous of your fellow opponent, then you are going to have a very heated rivalry. This was a huge factor in the Salem Witch Trials.

On the other hand his mother Ruth turned to piano and riding her bicycle (McBride 5). Compared to James’ actions she is far more serene. However it could be said that her calm actions drove her son to rebel more as it was that James felt that the piano was fine but the “bicycle drove [him] crazy” (McBride 5). The bicycle was a gift of sorts to her, something he had “hauled home a few months before he died” (McBride 5). The riding of the bike is most likely a way for her to feel safe and as if he was still close to her with her without actually acknowledging that he is gone, which is apparent when we learn that she rides her bike every day past his car, ignoring it (McBride 7).

The book begins talks about other conflicts that arose with James and Ruth. James took a downward spiral during his teenage years,

In the book The Color of Water. Racism plays a big part through the whole book. James Mcbride, one of the characters in the book has a mother named Ruth. Ruth's past was not good at all dealing with race throughout the book. In the book James tries to open up and see what his mothers past was about.

William Gibson's play, The Miracle Worker, illustrates how people who triumph over hardships can succeed in achieving their goals. The play follows Annie Sullivan, a half-blind northern young woman, as she travels to Post-Civil War Tuscumbia, Alabama in order to teach Helen Keller, a blind and deaf little girl. When she arrives in Alabama, Annie meets Helen's family members; her father, Captain Keller, is a stubborn, commanding former Civil War captain and her mother, Kate Keller, is a young, overly protective woman, both of them have kept Helen almost as a pet because they did not know what to do with her or how to treat her. In order for Annie to succeed in teaching Helen, she has to battle with Captain Keller's stubbornness, Kate's

In James’ case he knew that if he worked hard at school he could gain his fathers approval. However it seemed that he was in the shadow of his brother, who was also under the same pressure. He had turned to cheating to get better marks to avoid his father’s disapproval. James’ own sense of right and wrong were being clouded by his loyalty to- and competition with his brother, also his need for approval from his father and his sense of duty to protect his frail mother by “not

Throughout the countless pages of history, there exists many occurrences of change. Some of these changes are positive while others are negative. Nevertheless, as each change occurs, it must undergo struggles to become accepted. One example of the struggles of change that is seen in today’s society is the ongoing fight for religious freedom. Another change that is currently facing obstacles is the fight to change policies that raise the question of equality. Lastly, another struggle for change is the conflict that is occurring in order to make same-sex marriage legal. Through the examples of all these changes, there exists the common factor of changing values. As values change, new changes are undertaken. Therefore, changing values entail

I think Helen is more made at her father and is taking this out on her mother, maybe she feels like the mother should have demand her father be there for the family. I think Helen is reflecting anger towards her mother but she is really upset with her father, it seems like she is upset that her father has a good relationship with her siblings and the grandchildren when he wasn’t there for her and her siblings she feels he doesn’t deserve to have the good relationship with everyone when he wasn’t there when they was coming up in their childhood. Helen she feels the mother was there for her and her sibling but everyone thinks the mother is the one with the issues but she was the one that was there for them and the father wasn’t. I think she is having problems with the choice she chose to be angry with the mother but I think she is angry with the mother because she feels the mother should of made a better choice to make her father be in their lives more coming up but she seems like she is placing blame on her mother for her past when she is really is upset with her father.

For example, Jimmy Cross utilizes Martha as a distraction to escape his responsibilities of leading the troop through the war. “And then suddenly, without willing it, he was thinking about Martha” (11). By slipping into frequent daydreams, readers realize how his desire for Martha prevents him from acting like a true war sergeant. For instance, when given orders to destroy the tunnels in Than Khe, Cross was thinking about Martha’s virginity. Furthermore it is implied, that Jimmy Cross feelings for Martha is unrequited love. As a result, he fantasizes of there being a relationship more than one-sided love. “...a poet and a virgin and uninvolved, and because she did not love him and never would” (16). His fantasies about her not only served as a diversion from the war, but it also prevented him from developing his leadership skills. While Martha’s primary role in Cross’s mind was to act as a diversion from the traumatic experiences of war, she is also characterized as a type of emotional baggage that caused the death of others. “ He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war” (16) The thoughts of Martha, was specifical the metaphysical item Cross carried heavily to war to serve as a diversion; however her role hindered him with his duties as a Lieutenant to keep his troop safe and

James says that the only time he sees his mother cry is at church. When the congregation is singing one of her favorite songs she bows her head and weeps. When James asked her why she always cried at church, she said because God made her happy and that she was crying because she was happy. James was doubtful though, because happy people did not cry like she did in church. He says her tears seemed to come from someplace far away inside her. I believe she cried in church because she was overwhelmed by the loving and accepting atmosphere