River Of Names By Dorothy Allison

According to Brenda Shoshanna, an author and psychologist, “Unless we base our sense of identity upon the truth of who we are, it is impossible to attain true happiness” Everyone on Earth has their own unique identity, and if they do not have an identity they will always be struggling to find it. In The Color of Water by James McBride, the author tries to understand his mother’s identity in hopes that it will help him find his own as well. After learning his mother’s life story and going back to her hometown, James finds that Ruth’s family made the most impact on her identity because of her hypocritical father, kind mother, and her evasive siblings.

Sojourner Truth is an ex-slave and fiery abolitionist who dazzles listeners with her wit and originality. She is straight talking and unsentimental, Truth became a national symbol for strong black woman. Like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, she is regarded as a radical of immense and enduring influence; however, she is more remembered more for her myths than her personality. In the book, Sojourner Truth A Life, A Symbol, the author Nell Irvin Painter, goes beyond the myths, words, and photographs to uncover the life of a complex woman who was born into slavery and died a legend. Inspired by religion, Truth transforms herself from a domestic servant named Isabella into a nomadic preacher named Sojourner. Her words of empowerment have inspired black women and poor people of the world over to this day.

Brown did not have the easiest childhood; her mother abandoned her at a young age causing Dorothy to be left to an orphanage at just a few months old. She stayed there until the age of 13, when her mother tried to reclaim her. Seeing that her new environment with her birth mother wasn’t safe, Dorothy continuously attempted to run away back to the orphanage. Later on in her teen years, determined to receive an education, she ran away for good and joined as a student

Everybody wants to be perfect. People want to have control of their lives, yet life does not work that way. In the short story, “Pancakes,” Joan Bauer wrote about, Jill, the main character, controlling her work at a pancake house. One Sunday when Jill was working, a group of tourists arrived at the pancake house. Jill was the only waitress working so she had to balance her “perfect” work as customers come in. Jill tries to do her “perfect” way, but with customers in and out of the restaurant, the stress she has makes her fail at being perfect. The author’s overall argument in "Pancakes" is that it is impossible to be perfect through the use of foreshadowing, simile, and the first-person-point-of-view.

The definition of being a mixed person is being of descent of two or more races. However, in society, being a mixed person means so much more than this as each race entails its own cultural background and beliefs. These contrasting cultural backgrounds and beliefs are what cause debates on whether being mixed enables people to be accepted into multiple areas of society or if being mixed creates additional challenges when mixed people try to acquiesce into society. Clearly, James Mcbride agrees with the second argument by believing that being mixed makes it more difficult to assimilate into society. Mcbride recognizes how the contrasting cultures and beliefs that come with each race creates adversity against mixed peoples’ assimilation into multiple ethnic groups of society.

In the “Color of Water" Rachel is introduced to us at the beginning of the book in chapter one by her letter to James. We get to know a little background about her, then we get to know her son how James, her male child viewed her. Rachel, better known as Mommy by James, was a woman of principles and who valued and feared things just like any human being. Rachel had 12 children, including James, throughout her life with her two husbands Andrew Dennis McBride and Hunter Jordan. Mommy was at home and she valued all aspects of life, especially when it came to family, faith, and education.

When people are treated unfairly or unjustly, how should they perceive it and how do they generally react to this? In The Color of Water by James McBride, prejudice shapes James and Ruth in many ways, James has different stories than Ruth, due to the fact that he lived in a different time period, which makes his scenario different from Ruth’s. Both faced adversity, and stood up for themselves and defended themselves in many different ways just to make sure that they could survive in society. Ruth had always taught her children to be independent. She comes from an interesting background, she was starving of love and affection as a child. Ruth has experienced a lot of grief in her life due to all of these bad events that occurred. Even growing up, her father had treated her unfairly by taking advantage of her sexually. This was definitely not a right thing to do, Ruth’s father was an abusive man who had a sex addiction. He was found to have an affair with another woman even though Mameh knew about it the entire time. Due to her rough past when practicing Judaism, she decided to practice Catholicism after marrying Andrew Dennis McBride. She felt as if she was a freer person, she gained a personal connection to the religion which was good because it helped for her to get her mind off of things. James is a very confused boy, being black and white. He’s unsure where he fits in when it comes to society. A personal connection that I have to

James McBride can tell you firsthand about man verse racial identity. Journalizing his experience in his New York Times Bestseller novel the Color of Water simply outlined his struggles of finding who he was. His upbringing included a black father and a Jewish white mother. His background made it hard for him to understand why his home was different than others on the street. Although McBride experience shows an older outtake of racial identity, some may say this still is a problem today. Offspring feels the need to pick a race in society to succeed in the generation and it may be the step to understands them more. Notice in the subtitle of the book "A black Men tribute to his white mother" he label himself as just black as if there was a barrier between his mother and himself because the so different. Today we need to not let racial identity become a big part of our lives.

The novel, Color of Water, by James McBride details and reflects on racial prejudice from the perspective of two lives; the life of a Jewish mother, Ruth McBride Jordan, and then in the life of her black son, James.

The Color of Water is a book about a black man’s tribute to his white mother. In this book we journey through James McBride’s life while he figures out who he is. As we go through the book we learn more about james and his family past. Ruth james mother was a jew her father was abusive did not care for the children the way a father should. Ruth’s mother was disabled but loved the kids and took care of them as best as she could. As James gets older he wants to know more about where he came from. He did not know much of his past as a result of his mother not wanting her children knowing about the rough past she came from. As well as wanting to learn about the secretive past his mother had he wanted to find himself and in doing so he had to find where he fit in and felt comfort.

One must consider a little history on Dorothy Allison in order to see how the directions that she takes the novel add up. When she was 24, Allison lived in a lesbian-feminist collective. The women there gave her the confidence she needed and the ability to see the value in her own writing (Amazon.com). During this time, she also found someone who seemed normal, yet she had experienced the same “incest” (Megan 74). This discovery removed some of her separation that she believed her abuse created between her and the world (Amazon 74).

Nick is a World War I veteran who, as many veterans, suffers from emotional trauma that his experiences from the war left him with. Multiple scenes throughout the story, Big Two Hearted River, relates to Nick, the main character’s, journey toward recovery. Nick describes his surroundings in way that parallels to his own experiences and current voyage in respect to his revival.. He takes a calming adventure saturated with calming natural paths over hills, through woodland, and along a river to find peace with himself and to return to his prewar state of mind.

Richard Wright, wrote the fictional novel Native Son, using three intellectual forces, which include: Naturalism, Existentialism, and Communism. He uses these forces, along with racist ideology, to shape the life of a young black male, Bigger, living in the ‘Black Belt’ of Chicago in the 1940’s. Wright refers to the ‘Black Belt,’ as a ‘black world’ where violence is directed towards other American Americans, and warns that this violence will be aimed at white people. Bigger, is used to depict the criminal actions that come along with living in racial confinement under the fear of white people during this time.

The poem “Mothers and Daughters” is written by Pat Mora. Pat Mora is a contemporary award winning writer, who writes for children, youngsters and adults. She was born in El Paso, TX in the year 1942. She attains a title of a Hispanic writer; however, the most of her poems are in English. In her literary work, one can observe the different aspects of the immigrants’ lives such as language issues, family relationships, immigrants’ experiences and cultural differences (1187).

Waiyaki is a young man who tackles the responsibility of mending the two ridges of Makuyu and Kameno that separated because of the religious of Christianity. The River Between, written by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, captures the ramifications of the white men religions and its effects on the two mountain ridges, that is separated by the Honia river, while the story surrounds around Waiyaki as he blossoms. In the story, Waiyaki, also known as The Teacher, is a strong, gallant young man that believes in the old ritual ways of the original tribe; however he conjointly intermingles with the white man’s teachings. Waiyaki attempts to bring learning of the white men, not their religions, into the old tradition way and fails miserably. Overall, the people