Summary: The Color Of Water By James Mcbride

The Color of Water, a memoir written by James McBride, is unique in the way that it features two narrators: himself and his mother. This choice of narration builds the sincerity and honesty of the novel by offering two beautifully uplifting testimonies. The two perspectives create an interesting story about one’s search for identity, and sense of self. To begin, Ruth McBride’s narration is, in short, the rebirth of whom Ruth once was, before she left her Jewish faith. From chapter one, titled Dead, the reader is instantly aware of the vagueness or mysteriousness of her past. “I’m dead. You want me to talk about my family and here I been dead to them for fifty years. Leave me alone. Don’t bother me. They want no parts of me and me I don’t want no parts of them.” As the pages turn, however, Ruth seems to open up and speak more openly, more in depth, about her past. In a different time, a different life, there was no Ruth McBride from Brooklyn. However, there was a Ruchel Dwajra Zylska from Suffolk, Virginia. There was a jewish family of …show more content…
Both grew up as outcasts of society. Ruth grew up in a world where Jewish people and black people were looked down upon. “They loved anything different, or new, or from out of town, except for Jews. In school the kids called me ‘Christ killer’ and ‘Jew baby.’” This is comparable to James experiences in the classroom growing up. “Someone in the back of the class whispered ‘James is a nigger!’” An additional comparison can be drawn from the idea that both were ashamed of their mothers. “I was real conscious of that. Being Jewish and having a handicapped mother,” Ruth explained. Later in the memoir, James stated “I was ashamed of my mother.” “I had reached a point where I was ashamed of her and didn’t want the world to see my white mother.” Neither understood how to appreciate their mother for what she was, but rather as what she