Summary: The Color Of Water By James Mcbride

The narrator in the first chapter is Ruth McBride. Ruth is addressing her son James McBride because he is interviewing Ruth.“I don't remember the name of the town where I was born, but I do remember my jewish name: Ruchel Dwajra Zylska. My parents got rid of that name when we came to America…” pg 1

Aristotle once theorized, “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” The book, “The Color of Water” describes the lives of James and Ruth McBride and their journeys to find this happiness. Both of these characters, among other characters in the book struggled for the majority of their lives with the issues of race. They felt as if they were caught between two different worlds; the world of blacks and the world of whites. These struggles left all of the characters feeling forlorn. In McBride’s memoir it is made clear that in order to find happiness, the characters must first be able to confront and then overcome the racial divisions that were so prominent in their lives.

Does your past have a big influence to who you are and your children? Ruth McBride has been hiding her past from her children her whole life; her past shaped her and James’ life despite all the struggles he had with his identity. In The Color of Water by James McBride, his character is shaped by the influence that Ruth, his mother, gives by being secretive about her past. James struggles with his identity from when he was a child to an adult, which over time became a major issue he struggles to deal with. Ruth’s secrets about her past influence James’ confusion with himself and motivates him to find out who he is in order to gain closure with himself.

In the Color of Water, Ruth Mcbride has an important significance, because her complex past is what propels the book. Without her, the book would not be nearly as interesting. James Mcbride, Ruth’s son and author of the book, portrays Ruth as a secretive, un maternal like, and spiritual woman. Ever since James was a child, he remembers his mother never mentioning her past or her racial identity. James notes:”She had a complete distrust authority and an insistence on complete privacy which seemed to make her and my family odder .... Matters involving race and identity she ignored (9) Ruth keeps her past hidden away from her children, so that she doesn’t have to relive painful memories or inquire her past. In doing so, Ruth also doesn’t label

In The Color of Water by James McBride he faces plenty of obstacles in his life. One that I think was very important during his childhood is in chapter 14 where makes a few bad choices after his stepfather, Hunter Jordan, dies. Since James didn't get to know his biological father, Hunter was the closest he ever came to having one. He makes it clear that his family loved Hunter and when he died they were all devastated but none as much as their mother. It's safe to say she wasn't the same and that can be seen when McBride says "She sent us off to school and tried to maintain her crazy house as usual, ranting about this and that, but the fire was gone" (McBride, 137). I think his mother's behavior no doubt had some effect on the way he acted.

In the book color of water by James mcbride talks about his mother Ruth's and how she had ups and downs in her younger life till now when she is a widow and how she a has this habit of riding her bicycle through the all- black neighborhood in which James and his family lived. In “The Color of Water,” by James McBride has many themes. Each theme he is trying to get a point across and he tries to make us understand what him and his family went through as being Jewish and African American. He tells about his past and his parents past to give us an idea of what they all went through. In this book he brings you into their lives.

For my cultural cache book report I chose to read the book, The Color of Water by James McBride. I learned several things about what life was like in the mid-1900’s and in which may be why we still face issues with racial differences. McBride does a great job of illustrating his internal and external challenges that he faces throughout his life. I also learned more about African American culture in the United States and gave me a desire to be a part of positive change to this particular racial group.

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.

James McBride was born in 1957 to Ruth and Dennis McBride and was raised in Brooklyn’s Red Hook projects with his eleven brothers and sisters (Bodhos 2). In 1997 McBride’s bestselling memoir The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother was published. The story is uniquely written in double voice with chapters alternating between chapters as the author recounts his life growing up as a biracial child and his mother recalls in detail her disownment from her Orthodox Jewish family, marrying a black man and successfully raising twelve biracial children. The connection of the two stories is compelling

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 's memoir, The Color of Water, demonstrates a man 's search for identity and a sense of self that derives from his multiracial family. His white mother, Ruth 's abusive childhood as a Jew led her to search for acceptance in the African American community, where she made her large family from the two men she marries. James defines his identity by truth of his mother 's pain and exceptionality, through the family she creates and the life she leaves behind. As a boy, James questions his unique family and color through his confusion of issues of race. Later in his life, as an adolescent, his racial perplexity results in James hiding from his emotions, relying only on the anger he felt against the world. It is

James McBride's memoir, The Color of Water, demonstrates a man's search for identity and a sense of self that derives from his multiracial family. His white mother, Ruth's abusive childhood as a Jew led her to search for acceptance in the African American community, where she made her large family from the two men she marries. James defines his identity by truth of his mother's pain and exceptionality, through the family she creates and the life she leaves behind. As a boy, James questions his unique family and color through his confusion of issues of race. Later in his life, as an adolescent, his racial perplexity results in James hiding from his emotions, relying only on the anger he felt against the

At the beginning of The Color of Water, James McBride’s mother Ruth goes on to introduce particular aspects about her upbringing. She mentions how she grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family and begins to describe both her parents. Ruth’s father was a very cold and hard individual who didn’t care too much for his children’s overall well-being, while her mother was very sweet and kind in nature. She also goes on to talk about how her family was originally from Poland but decided to move to the United States from fear of oppression from the Russian government. Along with outside forces that proved to be a problem for Ruth’s family were similarities in oppressive behaviors in their family as well. Since Ruth’s family were Orthodox Jews,

“I'm dead. You want me to talk about my family and here I been dead to them for fifty years.” - Ruth McBride Jordan. Ruth McBride Jordan is a strong Polish Jewish woman with 12 children who firmly believes in work, school, and religion. Ruth undergoes many different changes within both herself and her family throughout The Color of Water, causing her to change her name 3 times in a way of reviving herself. These 3 names are significant with respect to her identity and her life because they represent a time in her life where she tried to change in order to make her it better. These name changes lead up to a manageable time of life for Ruth. The name Ruchel Dwarja Zylska is significant because it represents her when she was young naive girl who didn't understand the aspects of life. The second name, Rachel Deborah Shilsky, represents a time in her life where she tried to change her ways in order to fit in. The final name, Ruth McBride Jordan, stands for a time when she finally moves on with life and leaves behind all of the toxic things that once troubled her.

The Color of Water, by James McBride, is a capturing memoir which contains meaningful quotations to represent a bigger theme. In my opinion, the major theme in this book is "The Search For Identity". This is because, throughout the entire memoir, there have been multiple occasions where the identity of a certain character was unknown. American society is known to connote freedom in some sort of way, and in this case through the expression of individuality. Ruth Shilsky, James McBride's mother, was a Jewish immigrant who arrived in America for freedom and a chance for a better life. Like many other immigrants, Ruth wished to express her individuality in this vast country. However, her Jewish heritage handicaps her from doing what she feels