Summary: The Color Of Water By Ruth Mcbride

“ Mommy’s house was orchestrated chaos and as the eighth of twelve children, I was lost in the sauce, so to speak. I was neither the prettiest, nor the youngest, nor the brightest.” pg 65 Ruth’s family was made of lots of different people. In their family your brother or sister was your best friend and enemie. Also, While the house had lots of rules it was in constant chaos “ Her time merited only full-blown problems like, ‘Is the kitchen floor still under two feet of water since y’all flooded it?’” pg 69

family would not survive. Ruth’s aspirations are hindered due to the fact that she is

Ruth just want to get out of poverty and to have a happy family. She doesn’t want to lose her opportunity to get out of the too small dilapidated apartment of which her family is forced to live in do to their lack of finances.

Everyone in the world has their own identity but some are still searching for it. Many base their identity on race, religion, culture and language because it’s easier to belong to a certain group. However, there are some people who struggle with finding where they belong. For instance, James McBride in The Color of Water wonders who he is through most his childhood and some of his adult life. Mcbride tries to find himself by learning about his mother's background. After evaluating his mom’s past,culture and race his own issues with himself were made clearer because now he finally knows where he came from.

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 novel, “The Color of the Water” by James McBride, the readers are introduced to a character by the name of Ruth McBride, James McBride’s mother who presents herself as a wonderful mother to her children successful in life. The first reason Ruth McBride is a wonderful mother because she persuades her children to go to school and wants them to have a very good education in the future. One of the good reasons a mother would do was staying up all night and falling asleep in someone’s homework. Her motto is, “Educate your mind. School is important “(13). A good mother would always want her children to have the best education in the universe. Furthermore, the fact that Ruth McBride wants her children to get the best education is because she

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.

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

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

Michael Granada Period 4 Summer Reading Assignment The Color of Water by James McBride I. Character Analysis – Ruth McBride a. “What color is God’s spirit?” “It doesn’t have a color,” she said. “God is the color of water. Water doesn’t have a color.”

children was important to me. “We owe our family and friends more consideration, and ideals of family and friendship hold that it is perfectly okay, morally, to do what one wants to do, to go along with one’s feelings—and that, indeed, this can even be morally better than take the god’s-eye view of one’s actions” (Driver, 2005, p. 184). I began to reflect on the education I was lacking. I had been so brainwashed into believing that I was too old to go to college. I could not understand why I was too old and maybe I was supposed to stay home and care my family because that is what “a good mother” would do.

An Influential Upbringing “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. "― Steve Jobs. Searching for identity is a personal and dynamic journey. It begins at an early age with many unforeseen etchings on our impressionable young minds with family values, race, religion, and God-given personality traits.

In Ruth’s story she explains how much out of the ordinary she is. She talks in further detail how her family acknowledges her. Ruth explains how the little acknowledgement gets from her parents brings her happiness “Ruth leaned into the idea now, feeling a blush of pride. She knew she didn’t deserve it, really – that it was Niamh’s doing most of all – but still she let it linger for a moment” ( Gilligan 99). Ruth throughout her story in the novel over works herself to be loved. Ruth even tells the readers how her parents hardly ever show her love, she says, “But then last–for once– Mame’s letter had actually found a bit of feeling for her younger daughter; a bit of praise, even, for the Emerald Isle” ( Gilligan 222). The way she points out the bit of feeling she gets from the