The Color of Water Comparison Essay 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
This world is filled with many troubles including racism. Society often depicts whites as superior to blacks. However, this is not precise, because every race has both good and bad within it. The world is trying to break away from racism to become a better place for everyone around the world. Racism is not only about the color of one’s skin, it can impact individuals around the world due to their race or religion. The title of this novel is “Black and White” by Paul Volponi. In this coming of age story, two friends, Marcus Brown and Eddie Russo, who are black and white (respectively), are senior basketball stars at their high school. Marcus lives in community housing which is fraught with crime with a single mother. On the other hand, Eddie lives in a private house nearby where Marcus lives. Both Marcus and Eddie are in financial hardships and need to find easy money to cover their school and basketball fees. The two agree to start pulling robberies when they unintentionally shoot a black man. They are left in anxiety trying to avoid getting caught while trying to lead a normal life after the incident. They both end up going through the justice system, and Marcus must serve jail time while Eddie gets to go free. While all of this transpires, Marcus and Eddie manage to keep their friendship strong and overcome any barriers together. Any true friendship can overcome racial stereotypes put in place by society including the racial barrier between Blacks and Whites. The novel
John Foulcher writes interesting poetry because he can make the reader see, feel, and think. Summer Rain , demonstrate to the reader that Foulcher’s poetry is not only thought provoking and realistic, but it is also able to capture aspects of society through his unique use of imagery.
Black son, white mother. Living in Brooklyn, which is a predominantly black neighborhood, during the 1950’s. Just by analyzing the two main characters and the setting we can conclude that a recurring theme in James McBride’s The Color of Water is racial prejudice and injustice. Racial prejudice and injustice are still present in today’s society. All you have to do to see it is turn on the news.
His most perfect love in all the world was on that train. So he’d run to the end of the earth if he had to(Pg. 120). Juan Villasenor, one of the two major characters in Rain of Gold, a nonfiction novel by Victor Villasenor, faces many problems throughout the book that have a significant impact on the skullduggery little boy we knew from the beginning to the scrupulous and surreptitious man at the end. In Rain of Gold, it follows the sides of 2 characters, Juan, Lupe, and their families during the time of the Mexican Revolution, as they travel from Mexico to America, and go through many struggles on this voyage. In these obstacles, Juan faces from beginning to end, he learns many things on this journey and meets new people that change his
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.
‘48 Shades of Brown’ by Nick Earls is a novel that follows Dan Bancroft, the main protagonist, and his troubling experiences as he goes through his final year of school. Dan is thrown into a world of unfamiliarity, where he makes many comical and embarrassing decisions. This novel expresses the theme of having or not having control subtly through the choices Dan makes, and their consequences. This theme is also successfully revealed through the four elements; characters, plot, motifs and setting. The relationships between the characters are vital to providing an insight into the theme.
The spreading of information is the mold to which society’s viewpoints are created. Depending on who or how this information is spread, it may be phrased to garner a specific meaning or arouse a specific reaction. W.E.B. DuBois once hinted towards this manipulation of information in his statement, “Thus all art is propaganda and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists… I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda.” DuBois hints towards the fact that forms of expression, are when a specific thought or emotion is brought to reality to cause viewers to feel a specific way. Art would serve no purpose if it had no message to convey. Fahrenheit: 451 by Ray Bradbury depicts this message of propaganda as throughout
Persona, the aspect of someone 's character that is presented to or perceived by others. So for someone to adopt a persona is them putting their self in the shoes of another character to give off a specific perspective or view. Diane Gilliam Fisher uses this effectively in the poems found in her book “Kettle Bottom”. She places herself in the positions of both the children and wives of the coal workers, as well as the immigrants who worked the coal mine. She took the stance of the company owners and operators, and even the news reporters who spoke of the rebellion that was starting to take place. She uses this technique to persuade her audience to see the wrong that was happening in the coal mines. In comparison, the cut scene from the film “Matewan” that was written and directed by John Sayles takes the view point of the actual Union members and the conflicts that went on between the workers their selves. Both, these interpretations of what was going on in the coal mines of West Virginia, gives the audience the same perspective that the owners of the coal mines were the antagonist in the story. In addition to both “Kettle Bottom” and “Matewan”, the article “The Second Civil War: Remembering the Battle at Blair Mountain,” written by Alan Grayson (SpeakOut), also takes a bias stance against the mining company owners. Grayson portrays the mining owners to be crooked and wicked people, who had no remorse for the troubled environment that their workers struggle through
In The White Scourge, Neil Foley gives detailed facts about the construction and reconstruction of whiteness and the connection of this whiteness to power, mainly on cotton culture in central Texas. Foley 's book analyzes “whiteness” through detailed analysis of race, class, and gender. What was most intriguing about this book is its comparison of whiteness on various racial groups and classes, for and how each struggled in comparison to the other in order to thrive and exist with one another. In this book, Foley shows a racial system that continues to produce both poverty material wise and poverty of where you stand racially. It is also very interesting that the system exploits not only Mexicans and Blacks, but also the poor whites who competed with them for work.
Ruta Sepetys is the author for Between the Shades of Gray, a novel that captures the truth of Siberian camps and the annexation of the Balkans by Stalin. Ruta Sepetys got the idea to write this fictional story when she visited her family in Lithuania and got the chance to discover more about her heritage. She got very fascinated about her family’s struggle to keep memories of her grandparents because of the annexation of Lithuania to the USSR. This conflict urged her to find out more about the feelings and people’s memoirs during this period in World War II so, she started interviewing the survivors from the Siberian gulags and gathered information to write her novel. The book was also inspired by her father, Jonas Sepetys, who escape
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.
This is My Lemonade, is an adoption story about Robert Mulkey. Ernest and Alice was a married couple with one child, Cheryl, but they wanted another baby and could not conceive one after having three miscarriages. Ernest had a sister, Lavelle, who was a columnist in British Columbia. While there Lavelle was approached by Gwen, a pregnant 30-year-old, and her sister Maria, that needed help in locating adoptive parents for Gwen’s child. It was the 1950s in British Columbia and Gwen was a single pregnant woman and that was seen as socially unacceptable. Gwen thought about her possibilities and came down to two, to get an abortion or to give the baby up for adoption. So Lavelle contacted her brother Ernest and his wife Alice and asked them if they would be willing to take in Gwen and house her, paying for all her expenses until her baby was born, and then Alice and Ernest would then legally adopt Gwen’s baby. So that is just what happened. Gwen was flown down to Oregon, where Alice and Ernest lived, and stayed with them. Gwen bonded extremely well with Alice, sharing with her all about her life and even about the father of her baby, Guilio. Gwen told Alice about Guilio and how he knew she was pregnant but didn’t agree with Gwen on giving their son up; so going to Oregon alone and living with the family until the baby was born and then sign the parental rights over was the best decision. After the baby, Robert, was born, Gwen had three months to decide if giving up the baby was
In Los Angeles, at least 20% of fishes died from stormwater runoff. Who’s next? Repeatedly, stormwater runoff has indicated its negative consequences. From the bacteria in feces, to the chemical waste, stormwater has been made a hazard to all life on earth. Platypi, fish, frogs, and other marine life are in an immediate danger by the pollution. The pollution consisted of fecal coliforms and fecal streptococci, which are bacterias in organism waste. In addition, there 's lawn pesticides, and motor oils that are deadly. Water inundates humankind, making this an unavoidable conflict. However, creative solutions of managing the runoff has been proved successful. The solution appears as a green infrastructure, defined as a network system that helps manage water, or in this case, stormwater runoff. On the other hand, there has been recommendations of using public awareness as a solution, but this is only a key factor to a larger concept. In her article, “Water Works” Cynthia Barnett conveys how using these creative solutions such as the green infrastructure, is considerably more beneficial than the traditional ways of reducing water all together. She suggests that living differently with water, compared to reducing water, will benefit the nation greatly in their water dilemma. In addition, she believes that the pollution of stormwater harms Pacific killer whales, coho, and salmon. In agreement, I also believe that the pollution threatens the marine life. Hence, the management of
We all know that why oceans are important for us and why we need to take actions towards the preservation and keeping our oceans clean from plastic. In article “Our oceans are turning into plastic… are we?” Susan Casey has tried to inform the general audience about the problems caused by plastic in oceans. Susan Casey has strong credentials for writings this article because she already has wrote many works about the oceans and marine life such as The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America's Great White Sharks. Furthermore she also worked in editorial tams of two movies Into Thin Air and The Perfect Storm. So this shows that she is well experienced in writing works about oceans and marine life. Using her previous
Hazel Grace Lancaster, Augustus Water, Peter Van Houten, Mr. & Ms. Lancaster, Mr. & Ms Waters, Isaac, Patrick (background) and Kaitlyn (minor)