Post a 200-word response to the following prompt. You should not repeat ideas, but you may expand on an earlier post. Be sure to proof all work before posting.The first line of Color of Water is: “I’m dead”(McBride 1). Also, Ruth reveals on the next page that, “She had to die in order for me, the rest of me, to live”(McBride 2). What types of death can people suffer? Are they all negative?
At the end of the novel, how do these types of death define and redefine the main character, James?
101 comments:
Death can be both good and bad. It is the end of something, but also the beginning of something. In the novel The Color of Water, the main characters mother suffers throughout her early childhood. Her father mistreats her, she is made fun of at school, and she only has one friend who she can trust. She decides to leave the south and come to New York in order to escape from her past. Her family no longer acts as is she is alive once she goes to New York, she is dead to them. James McBrides mother, Ruth finds that she has a new beginning in New York. She, for the first time, lives. I think death in many situations is very sad, you miss something that is no longer going to be there. But I do think death can be very happy. With death comes a new beginning, an end to suffering. I think James McBride comes to realize the bad life that he was leading wasn’t the life he wanted to lead. He turned to God, and his old life died and his new life as a Journalist had begun. His suffering of drug dealing had ended and his new life of focusing on his studies had begun. With death comes a new beginning, death doesn’t always have to be negative.
In my opinion, death is just a form of leaving. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes, like in Ruth McBride's case, you may just be leaving a part of yourself behind and moving foward. While this is difficult and sad, it may also be life changing and positive. Ruth decided to leave the Jewish part of herself behind and by doing so she was able to create a family with James' father and live out the happiest years of her life with him even though this didn't last. But if she had never let that part of herself die, she would have never ended up where she was and she may never have ever been truly happy. I agree with Cecilia when she explained how James let his troubled life die in order to pursue his studies. I think Ruth's decision to allow that part of her to die defined James. Throughout his life James was so unsure of who he was and this affected his later life by having him miss good opportunities in his career because of his internal struggle of finding out who he was. James then sees that in order to discover himself he has to find out more about his mother. Exploring his mother's past redefined him because it allowed him to discover who he was and finally feel stable and know the truth about everything.
I believe people can experience death in different ways. One would be a physical death, where the loss of a person takes place. Another death is when a “piece” within a person is left behind. These deaths are not always negative. It can become a positive thing if a new more fulfilled person emerges as a result. This is proven true in The Color of Water by James McBride.
The main character, James is experiencing life as a dark skinned child, living with his twelve other siblings, and a secretive Mother who is white. Him and his family live in small apartments all their lives, and struggle to make ends meet. James struggled to identify himself as black or white.
During his struggle Hunter, his step-father passes away. James was very close to him, he was the only father he had ever known. Hunter’s death makes James realize what a remarkable person Hunter was. It encouraged James to be more like his step-father. At the same time James finally learns of his mother’s past. She had chosen to leave her old self behind because most of her childhood was a horrible time for her. Therefore she kept it a secret from her children. When she reveals it to James, he learns about his Jewish background, and his mother’s cruel upbringing.
James struggled with drug addiction, and had trouble sticking to one job for a long time, even when the job offered him great opportunities. However the death of his step-father and the discovery if who his mother was, helps James to eventually identify himself. He becomes dependent on his faith and realizes he is both black and white, and begins to embrace all of its contributing factors.
Death is a part of life. It can be defined in many different ways. A way of moving on, ending something, or even a way of starting something different and new. Not all death is bad. It can end someones’s suffering, change someone, and allow one to move on. Ruth McBride has to die in order to move on with her life. As a child, she his made fun of at school because she is jewish and sexually abused by her father. She doesn’t get much time to herself because she has to work at her families store everyday after school and all day on the weekends. She leaves that life for a new one in New York. She drops her Jewish name and changes her religion. She walks away from her past and all of the people in her family, including her one and only friend. Most of her mothers family lived in New York, but they disowned her for leaving their sister in the south, even though they never came to visit her mother. In her families eyes, she was dead. Ruth then marries a black man and had eight children with him. He died when she was pregnant with her eighth kid, James. James had to grow up wondering who his mother really was and why he didn’t look like her? As James grew older, he struggled with his step dad, who was like a real father to him, died of cancer, a drug addiction and the ability to keep a job. His unanswered past affected him because when good opportunities came around, he would let them go because he still didn’t know who he was. So he became a writer. He was now seeking his mothers past to allow him to understand his. Therefore, death allowed both James and Ruth to discover who they really were.
In my opinion, death is almost always needed in order to grow. One who hopes to grow and improve must abandon what is holding him/her back, even if it is a part of themselves. In the novel The Color of Water, Ruth McBride must abandon her former self, Rachel Shilsky, in order to find happiness. In doing so she must defy her family and her religion. When Rachel Shilsky fled Virginia at age nineteen, she let the Orthodox Jew in her die and became an adamant Christian. In doing so she also estranged her family, who considered her dead for marrying an African American man. That was a different type of death, as she refused to let her fear of her father and unwavering love for her mother and sister keep her from reaching her goals. Ruth let her fear die, and although she never stopped loving her mother or sister, she knew that change and growth meant having to cut ties with them. Another type of death is the end of one’s life, which James must experience when his stepfather dies of heart failure. I do not believe that all types of death a person experiences throughout their life are negative, but some are certainly painful. James McBride redefines himself multiple times throughout the novel. After the death of his stepfather, he slides into a period of rebellion and anger, which was necessary for him to become a stronger person later on. After learning of the parts of his mother that have died, he must reevaluate his outlook on his mother the importance of religion in the McBride family. By experiencing death, James and Ruth were both able to evolve and grow.
Death can either be a physical or emotional occurrence in someone’s life. The event may have a positive or negative effect on person experiencing the loss. If it is the type of death is one where someone’s life is taken, I believe that to be a negative event. In the novel The Color of Water, both James and Ruth experience this type of death in the novel. When James’ step-dad dies he is emotionally wrecked. James’ biological father died before he was even born, so his step-dad was the major father figure he had during his lifetime. Ruth has to deal with the death of her mother and multiple husbands which she all loved deeply. After her second husband dies, she completely shuts off from the world. But not all death is physically dying. Death can also be leaving a place, a person, or yourself behind. In this case, death can be a positive event. If what the person is leaving behind is the cause of the pain in their lives, then death is a good thing. In the novel, Ruth let the Jewish part of her die when she moved to Virginia and became a devoted Christian. Ruth completely let her old self die. She moved away from her family, changed her name and her religion, and completely disobeys her father by getting involved with a black man. Ruth knew that her family had considered her dead after making drastic changes in her life. Ruth needed to reinvent herself in order for her to be happy, so she eventually accepts the fact that she no longer has any family to depend on.
In the end of the novel, James is redefined by all of the deaths that he experienced throughout his life time, both physical and emotional. In the beginning of the novel, James is a child who is always questioning his mother and their differences. As a child, James is always confused about the difference in the color of his skin and his mother’s skin. After his step-father dies, he becomes involved with drugs and alcohol and loses a part of himself. He takes advantage of his mother’s grief and suffering and drops out of school. As James grows out of his rebellious phase he begins to explore his mother’s roots. He then finds an appreciation for all that his mother left behind. James lets the angry teenager in him die in order to redefine himself and lead a healthy life as a journalist. Death doesn’t always have to be negative, or literal.
The different types of death that can be experienced by a person are emotional death, physical death, mental death, and personality death. Physical death is when a person no longer has physical signs of living, like a heartbeat. Emotional death is when a person no longer can, or refuses to, experience emotions. Mental death is when the physical body is living, but the person cannot express any signs of consciousness. Personality death is when a part of a person’s character “dies”. Not all types of deaths are negative. For example, if a tyrant or a mass murderer died, people would generally find his death to be a positive event. Also, in Ruth’s case, her personality death was a positive change for her; it allowed her, as she says, to truly “live”.
These types of death define and redefine James throughout the novel. His real father physically dies when James was young, but his father’s influence reached out to him through his mother and his older siblings. When his stepfather dies from lung cancer, his mother’s emotional breakdown causes him to have a negative personality death as well as emotional death; he drops out of school, gets addicted to drugs, and steals people’s purses. He also quells his emotions, even though deep inside, he felt sorry for the women whose purses he had stolen. He eventually realized that dropping out of school and getting addicted to drugs wouldn’t help him do anything; he has a positive personality death and goes back to getting himself educated and helping his mother. After digging out his mother’s history, he comes to understand and accept who he truly was and what his place was in the world.
Ruth McBride gives a new definition to the word “death”. She explained to James that the Jew in her “is dead…she had to die in order for me, the rest of me, to live” (2). Later in the novel, she explains that “part of me died when Dennis [Ruth’s first husband] died” (244). By this rationale of death, it means the end of a memory or belief. It happens when someone moves onto a new chapter in his/her life. When Ruth left her home in Virginia, her painful memories of loneliness and her abusive father died; thus enabling her to pursue happiness elsewhere. When her first husband passed away, another part of her died. Without the loving husband that opened her eyes to a new world, Ruth spiraled into a deep depression. She noted to James that “I remember walking through the projects with my seven kids, crying – I’d just break out in tears in the middle of the day” (245). Evidently, this type of death can be both positive and negative.
James’ life has been defined by his own personal deaths. Throughout his childhood, he identified himself as an African-American. He grew up around African-Americans, he looked like an African-American, and his mom acted like she was an African American. In the memoir, he explains his identity crisis as a college student and young adult: “When I found myself squeezed between black and white, I fled to the black side…I felt frustrated to live in a world that considers the color of your face an immediate political statement” (261-262). It wasn’t until he explored his mother’s past and learned to appreciate his biracial identity that he was able to let the “political statement” of race die and look past race to see people for who they really are.
There are two ways a person can die, either mentally or physically. A mental death is when a person goes through a traumatic experience which effects his or her mental state. The experience can have an effect their personality, which can impact their outlook on life. One can also experience a physical death, which is what we all experience at the end of our lives.. A physical death is simply dying. A negative death is when someone lives an enjoyable life, and then passes away. A positive death is when a person does not enjoy life and then dies. Many unhappy people say they would rather be dead than alive. These people often commit suicide. In the novel the Color of Water the main character, James, died a mental death in his childhood to his teens. He grew up in a bad neighborhood, hung out with the wrong group of kids and started doing bad things. James finally realized how his lifestyle was hurting himself as well as his family this is when he mentally died on the inside. This made him feel terrible about himself, which is when he decided to change the way he acted and became a much better person.
Throughout the course of a person’s life, they can experience many different types of death. Some can be negative but sometimes certain deaths can have a positive impact on a person’s life. The death that we all experience is the one at the end of our lives. Another example of a death would be a person in a state of depression. That type of death is negative. An example of a death in “The Color of Water” is the death of a personality inside of you. Ruth goes through this type of death several times throughout the novel. The first time one of these deaths happened to Ruth was when she left her home in Virginia and was sent to her aunt’s house in New York City. She had to forget her hometown and leave behind all the bad things that happened there like her abusive relationship with her father. That person died inside of her and she began a new part of her life. This type of death, in my opinion, was a good death. Because her life was so terrible in Virginia, the best thing for Ruth to do was to forget about what happened in the past and remove herself from her own family.
At the end of the novel, James’ character is changed by certain deaths he experienced. The physical death of his stepfather had a huge impact on his life both negatively and positively. After his stepfather died, James started skipping school and doing drugs and he just became a bad kid. His grades dropped and he was getting onto trouble. That was the negative effect that his stepfather’s death had on him. The positive effect it had on James was that James became much closer to his mother. At the end of the novel, James realizes that he and his mother’s relationship grew strong throughout the years. James also went through a similar death that his mother went through. Once he realized he got into Oberlin College, he stopped being the bad kid he was and ended up having a decent career in journalism. He left behind his old self and matured into an adult. The death of the child inside of him changed his life for the better.
In the novel The Color of Water the first line is “Im dead” (McBride 1). Also, Ruth reveals on the next page that, “She had to die in order for me, the rest of me, to live”(McBride 2). People can suffer all different types of deaths for example emotional deaths and physical deaths. I believe they are not all negative. Some deaths are negative and some are positive. In the book The Color of Water by James Mcbride Ruth wants to create a new life by moving to New York. Ruth wants to get away from the place where she got picked on as a child. Ruth wanted to be reborn for the better. By Ruth moving she is dying emotionally and being reborn with a new outlook on life. She then wanted to start a new life with James and get away from all of those horrible memories. I believe that all physical deaths are bad. They are bad because when you die physically I do not believe you can be reborn. I believe the only physical changes that can happen are not deaths they are only changes in your life. For example when Ruth is pregnant with her eighth child her husbands dies. I believe no good came out of that. Even though Ruth met another man, no good came out of her first husband dying. I also believe that there is a death of the mind. This is proven true when James realizes who he is hanging out with and the type of lifestyle is hurting himself and the people he loves. James then tried to kill that mindset and change. This is an example of a death for the better. There are many types of deaths, some can be for the better and some for the worse, but many more deaths exist than physical deaths. This is proven true many times in The Color of Water by James Mcbride.
There are many different kinds of deaths, for example, a physical or an emotional death. Death doesn't always have to be a negative thing because you can look at it as moving on and starting over. In The Color of Water by James McBride, Ruth says she has to die in order for the rest of herself to live. This is her trying to move on and start over as a new person. Ruth had a hard life, but she wanted to move on and forget about her childhood. She left her family, changed her name from Rachel to Ruth, and her religion from Jewish to Christian. After all these changes, especially marrying a black man, Ruth's family rejected her. As a child James McBride wasn't sure who he was. He kept questioning Ruth about their racial differences and his background. I think that the changes Ruth made redefined James. He never knew who he was. He got into a lot of trouble starting with dropping out of school and doing drugs. He decides to change his life and forget about drugs and think about education. He also goes deeper into Ruth's background to find out who he is. Since learning about Ruth's death and new life, he found out more about himself.
In life people can suffer from not only physical deaths but can go through such traumas that people can temporarily be emotionally dead. When Ruth recognizes she is in love with Dennis she also recognizes that when her family found out they would disapprove of her choice. For Denis, was neither Jewish nor white, both of which things her family valued. Ruth realized that she had to do what was right for her and leave her family to become who she wished to be. And so, Ruth left with her family ashamed of her and her choices. Her Jewish Family sat Shiva for her and in their eyes she was dead. Obviously, Ruth was not dead, but to her family there was a void in their lives from Ruth that could never be fixed; it was as if she was dead to them. As for whether death is negative or positive, I believe that nothing is purely negative or positive but a mix of both. Ruth leaving caused her family to disown her but at the same time allowed her to fall in love and raise the family she dreamed of. When someone is physically dead they are no longer suffering through illnesses or in pain. This can be a relief to the person, but can also make the loved ones in that person’s life very sad. These types of death redefined Ruth to be the strong mother that James has always known her to be, while also giving her closure and the ability to move on. James is able to grow too, knowing his family’s history and is able to appreciate whom he is and where he comes from.
In some situations death can be considered bad, but in other situations it can be considered good. Ruth, Jame's mother in The Color of Water suffers an emotional death to her family. In her case this is considered good because in life after death always becomes a new beginning. In the Color of Water Ruth was born into a strict Jewish family where there were many dark secrets kept inside the family. The secrets included Ruth becoming pregnant to a black man while not married, and ended up getting an abortion, another was Ruth's dad's affair, and her mother being beaten by him. This made Ruth emotionally dead, where she felt nothing anymore so she felt the need to run away. So one day she just packed her things and left. Her family thought of her as dead to them, that's the reason the first line in the book is "I'm dead".
On the next page she says "She had to die in order for me, the rest of me, to live". This meant that in order for Ruth to live a happy, and free live she had to escape from her old life, or her old self. For example when she "escaped" she changed her religion to praise and live her life by Jesus. This made her feel fusilier and loved by God. She also married a black man, who she loved dearly and had eight children with. And when that husband died she met another black man who she then married and had another four children with. She became a new person by changing her surroundings, her relationships and her religion.
Although "death" to your family may come with some regret, lonesomeness and pain it was worth is for Ruth. She had a beautiful life, and spent it with her twelve children.
At the end of the novel his mothers background and her types of death redefine James by giving him new light on his own life. This means that James learned that he can also change his life for the better, and it also showed him where is mother came from. It was important for James to see where his mother came from because his whole life he was confused about his own background, and now that he knows where he came from he can feel comfortable in his own body.
People can suffer from all different kinds of deaths. Some examples could be physical and emotional death.
Physical death is when someone actually dies from murder, disease, accident, etc. This type of death could be both positive and negative. An example of a positive death would be if someone dies and that person was a threat to others. An example of a negative death would be if someone was suffering from an illness or a severe accident and ended there life in pain. Another example of negative death would be if someone died unexpectedly.
With a persons physical death, can lead to emotional death in another person. Emotional death is when someone basically looses hope. Nothing has gone right for them and they feel that anything they do will not end as planned. This type of death, in my opinion, can be negative… rarely positive. It can be negative because it could cause someone to be suicidal. People would loose hope and it could lead to someone just wanting to be dead. This could rarely be positive.
These types of deaths defined and redefined James in many different reasons. James did not experience physical death but did experience emotional death. “’Mommy’s not your real mother. Your real mothers in jail’” (McBride 22). This could have made James go through emotional death because he is now confused about who his biological mother is. This made him feel empty inside and he did not know who to believe. Another example of emotional death is when his father dies. He felt such a loss when his father died. When his mother remarried, that wade things better but then he died. With James loosing his father, it impacts him and his family in a positive way by the way they act. But, when his stepfather dies it has a negative impact on his life. He starts getting into a lot of trouble like dropping out, doing drugs, etc. He would never show his emotions to anyone, even his mother.
The most common idea of death is physical death in which a human is no longer breathing. However, in The Color of Water by James McBride, James’ experiences and explains how people can suffer several different deaths, such as, physically, emotionally, mentally, religiously, and dead to a family. James mother, Ruth McBride, understands physical death when her husband died leaving her unable to function. As the reader discovers Ruth’s past, she is shown as religiously dead. “…I started to become a Christian and the Jew in me began to die” (McBride 218), where it’s suddenly clear that Ruth departed from her Jewish life because it was a reminder of the struggle her mother went through, and she could not be associated with her past since it tied her down. The diverse number of deaths that James’ family members, including his mother, grandmother and step-father, had to go through defines James throughout and at the end of the novel. As James unraveled his mother’s history, as well as his own, he was able to create his own life by overcoming the struggles that these deaths created. He realized, “My life won’t be lived that way, and neither, I hope, will my children’s,” (McBride 229). Since Ruth was “Removed. Dead,” (McBride 99), because she left her family and married a black man, this left James to question his mother ever since he was young. From his step-father’s death, he went through a tough phase which ultimately helped him later become a rooted individual instead of a drop out. He was finally able to get himself out of the deaths he had gone through to find a purpose in living, enlighten his life, and have a suitable career which he could enjoy. Of all these different types of deaths, not all are negative, especially depending on the situation. Physical deaths are usually negative because with the person who passed are memories that will no longer be shared. On the contrary, deaths can relieve someone of a pain or a past that they do not want to experience again and therefore letting go, or dying, can leave a positive effect.
A death is usually an end, whether it’s and end to one’s life or just an end to a chapter in one’s life. Death could also be an end to part of a person. But the end of one thing is the beginning of another, or the death of one thing is the birth of another. In the birth of something new is when a death can be positive. A negative death in this book was the death of Dennis. Dennis experienced the most literal kind of death one thinks of. When Dennis passed away, the McBride family, especially Ruth, experienced their own death. Dennis was a part of the family, and he supported the family, both emotionally and physically, and that support died. Both of these deaths were negative deaths. Ruth experienced a positive death in the memoir. Rachel Shilsky was a young Jewish girl living in Suffolk, Virginia. Rachel Shilsky died when she grew up, moved to New York, and married a Black man. Her Jewish family sat Shiva for her, just as they would do if she literally died. But out of the death of Rachel came the birth of Ruth. Ruth was not a Jewish girl in Virginia; she was a Christian girl in New York. In the book, Ruth explained that se never actually lived until she became a Christian, and her life was better after Rachel “died.” James experienced a couple of deaths and rebirths throughout his life. He was always an innocent child that did well in school and listened to his mother and his older siblings. Then, when his mother’s second husband died, James’ personality died. He started committing crimes, such as stealing and drugs. He stopped going to school. Although this death lead to a new life, it was not a good life. But James got his life back on track. He stopped committing crimes and went back to school and eventually college. This was a positive death because it allowed him to go to college and get a job. Sometimes death can devastate a person, but sometimes death allows a person to live again.
There are many types of death that people can suffer; examples of death are shown in the novel The Color of Water by James McBride. Someone can suffer the death of a loved one which has an enormous impact on their life. When Ruth’s first husband died, her life was drastically changed. A person can suffer death eternally, leaving your old ways behind and becoming a different person. When Ruth finally left Virginia after having a rough childhood, she went to New York to start her life over. Death isn’t always necessarily a bad thing. When Ruth arrived in New York to start her life over, the old Ruth dying was a good death. When Ruth’s first husband died, her life was changed for the worse. During James’ childhood he was looking for answers. Ruth kept her childhood a secret because she didn’t want to visit her painful past. James, a dark skinned male, was constantly wondering why his mother was white. At the end of the novel, after discovering his mother’s past, James realizes that death had defined his life. If Ruth had never left Virginia and began a new life in New York James wouldn’t have existed. After the death of James’ step father, James started to throw his life away by skipping school and doing drugs. In James’ case death was good and bad because in the end, death defined his life.
Rachel Deborah Shilsky suffered through her childhood with an overbearing and abusive father, a sick and crippled mother, and prejudice against her and her family for being outsiders to the mainly Christian community they lived in. Ruth McBride Jordan had none of these experiences. Her life began when she moved to New York and found God, becoming a devout Christian. In a literal sense of death, it can be a bad thing. When Ruth’s first husband died, she had lost the love of her life and her only means of supporting her family of 8 children. There are more ways to die than just physically. When Ruth’s second husband died, her son James distanced himself from her because he could tell she was emotionally dying from grief. He described her going through the motions of the day, without emotion or care the way she had before. In a positive sense of the word, when she moved from Suffolk, VA to New York City, Ruth left behind her past and Rachel died because the life that she had lived was no longer going to hold Ruth back. In some cases death is like a new beginning. In Suffolk, Ruth could not be with the man she loved at the time because of a racial difference and she could not go to her own graduation because her father would not let her enter the “gentile church.” In leaving she was able to shed all the abuse and suffering she had collected throughout her life and be reborn into who she wanted to be. Experiences and how they are handled can define a person. When James stepfather Dennis died, he dropped out of school. All his hard work and responsibility was shrugged off and he did drugs and stole. Seeing his mother emotionally die was taking a toll on him and he did not want to be around her so he stayed out to all hours of the night getting high. Later in life when he had cleaned up and graduated college, finding out about Rachel’s death and Ruth’s birth changed him. He began to realize past what he had already known what a strong woman his mother was. She had survived her father’s abuse, racism, and prejudice against her Jewish faith, and raised 12 kids to become doctors and professionals in all their fields. James grew to have a strong faith in God through the death of his old self, the one that came home high every night. The different types of death James encountered changed who he was and made him a stronger and better person who appreciates his upbringing and unique background.
Death is usually associated with being negative and to the end of somethings life. Not many people think about it as an end to someone's life and a beginning to a new life. Death can be a positive thing if you look at it from a different point of view or mind. In Ruth's case it was both positive and negative because when Rachel died and her whole past was lost but because of that Ruth was born with a new beginning and new dreams to pursue. The Shilskys wanted no part in Ruths new life because Ruth was dead to them in a way that she was not their daughter. Rachel was their jewish daughter who would not step into a catholic church or ever think about marrying a colored man. "I been dead to them for fifty years" (1). The last time she left, she left for good and Tateh told her to never come back if she married a colored man. And thats exactly what she did. "You're out of the family. Stay out. We sat shiva for you. You can't see her." (216) Her Aunt Mary told her that and it hurt her. Rachel was dying and once her Mameh died that was the end of Rachel. "The jew in me was dying anyway, but it truly died when my mother died." (218)
James loved his mother through everything. When he would start to question his mother about her past she would brush him off and he would try to forget about it but it would only make him wonder more and more. James didn't know who his mother was, and that started to make him wonder who he was. Once James' step father died, Ruth was depressed and it effected everyone in the family. James started not to care about school and started doing bad things. After a while he knew he had to get better to help his mother. So after they moved to Delaware he started fresh and focused on his music a lot. So the bad kid he used to be died in him then. Once James became a journalist he would always bother his mother about her past and once she started telling him about it. He went all over the place to try and piece everything together. Because of who Rachel and Ruth were it shows how much of a desire James had for wanting to know her more. Without that he would have never written this book as a tribute to his mother.
Throughout the novel, The Color of Water, by James McBride, Ruth and James each had to go through different types of death. Death doesn’t have to be a negative aspect in a persons life, it can be a chance for a person to redefine themselves and a total new beginning. People can go through many different types of death. As said in earlier responses, death can be suffered emotionally or mentally. Dying emotionally means that you can no longer feel anything and you express no emotion in your life. Dying mentally is when a person can’t think anymore and in their mind something kills them so much that they can barely grasp it. Ruth died emotionally in the novel when she was a young girl. Tateh, her father, sexually abused her at a young age and made her work which pushed Ruth to leave her family. This was also a positive effect of death in Ruth’s life because although she left her family behind, she was able to redefine herself as a women and start her life over. Ruth’s choice of a black boyfriend, Peter, went against her parents and therefore they disowned her. This was a negative effect of death in Ruth’s life because she no longer had her family there for her. Mentally it killed her, and throughout the book it was a painful component to her history and childhood. When Ruth said, “She had to die in order for me, the rest of me, to live” (McBride 2) it was correct because in order for Ruth to have become the person she was the old Ruth had to die.
James growing up with different fathers and eleven siblings put him through a lot, but by the end of the novel helped him as a person. When James’ favorite stepfather died he became irrational and went into the life of crime and drugs. This was an emotional and mental death for James because he felt he had nothing left. James worked with black men where his sister Jack lived, and while doing work for them he came to realize who he was and who he wanted to be. Mentally he knew he was raised better then that and realized he didn’t want to be that person doing drugs and getting into trouble everyday. He started to turn towards God and the Christian faith and believed in hard work. He worked on his interests like music and writing and eventually was admitted to Oberlin College. The journey he overtook after he died mentally and emotionally helped him find his true self. Sometimes you have to experience death in order to find yourself and realize who you are, and that’s exactly what Ruth and James McBride did.
Death can come in many forms, and thus have many varying results. In The Color of Water by James McBride, the main character, James, learns of many kinds of death. Throughout the novel, James’ experience with death helps him to learn about his mothers past and define who he can be in the future. James’ mother, Ruth, was once called Rachel Shilsky, however, that was during a time when she was not truly living. Rachel’s life was filled with misery, her father abused her and few accepted her. In order to live Rachel had to die. This kind of death is the ending of one life and the beginning of another. Out of Rachel emerged Ruth, a woman who was able to live life to the fullest, finding joy from her early loss. James also experienced the sorrow connected to death when his step-father, Hunter Jordan, physically died from a stroke. After his sudden loss James entered a stage of rebellion, he dropped out of school, started stealing and doing drugs. Finally, James came to realize what a horrible life he was leading. This realization allowed the drug addicted part of James to die as he moved on to graduate from high school and go to college. Although the death of loved ones is a sad notion, death can also release freedom. In the case of both James and Ruth, their personality deaths free them from the shadows of their pasts.
People live their lives in fear of their departure, their death, that they know will someday come and take away everything that they have ever lived for. The word “death” can have two different meanings. The most common definition of death, the literal one, means that someone is physically no longer breathing and therefore not sustaining life. This is the version of death that makes every human terrified, because no one knows what happens next. Many people overlook the other sense of meaning of the word “death,” the mental sense. Mentally, someone can die and become the very person they swore they would never be, or maybe the person they have always wanted to become. This is the type of death that can sometimes be positive. In the novel “The Color of Water” by James McBride, Rachel Shilsky was raised by Jewish customs in a small town in Virginia. She lived her childhood according to her father’s commands, always eating kosher foods and working in her father’s store the second she returned from school. When Rachel left her family and moved to New York, her soul died and she became an entirely new person, leaving her painful past and even her name behind. Ruth McBride (Rachel’s new identity) lived her life without thinking about what she went through in order to make it where she was that day, but instead kept her past in the back of her mind, rejecting and avoiding questions about it, even if they came from her kids.
James McBride is personally defined by the deaths that occurred throughout his and his mother’s life. When his step-father passed away, something in James died too, for he began to not care about what the rules in his mother’s household were, steal things, and do drugs. His mother, Ruth, had become emotionally drained from her husbands’ deaths, raising twelve children, and working. Her house was always messy and her kids starved, but she did everything she could to remain strong. James wanted to get away from his mother because he could not take how she was always pessimistic and tired, so he went to college. Here, he was born a new person once again, because he stopped taking the drugs and he began to have a passion for music and writing. This death helped him become a writer, which later encouraged him to write a novel about his life, where he learned about the mental death that his mother Rachel had endured. If she hadn’t given up everything she had and moved to New York, James realized that he might not be there. All the types of death that James encountered throughout his life and the deaths that he learned of from his mother’s life helped define who he was as a person.
I think that death is not always a bad thing. There are many different deaths you can suffer throughout your life. Such as mental, physical, and emotional death. Sometimes it can be good for a person or bad. It really depends on how that person lived their life. Obviously everyone must die at some point in life and you will never know when that time will come. For some it is a good thing and for others it can be heartbreaking. Death is really just a part of life. Throughout the novel, Ruth is affected by many people in a bad way. For example, her father abused her, she was made fun of in school by her peers because of being abused by her father and because of her religion. In result of all her suffering from this, she chooses to relocate herself and start over. She moves to New York to get away from everything that has happened to her and attempt to forget all about the life she used to live. She felt that to restart her life, she also had to be away from her family for good. I think this was a good decision.
At the end of the novel, James changes because of the deaths he has experienced. He experienced many different deaths and rebirths throughout the course of his life. The character of James was always a good kid, never looked for trouble, got good grades and was a pretty cooperative boy. But this all changed with the death of his stepfather died. This changed James’ personality. Suddenly everything went wrong. He started doing drugs, committing crimes, and just stopped showing up to school. He was defeated. But he did bounce back. He realized the life that he was getting into and would not allow this to happen to himself. So he changed once again. He started showing up to school again and then went to college and ended up getting a job. The death of his stepfather was a very hard time for James but it made him think a little about himself. So in my opinion, this was a positive death for him.
In the novel, The Color of Water, two types of death are presented, physical and symbolic. Each type of death can help a person to grow stronger. Physical death is when a person literally dies. Symbolic death is figurative and does not involve an actual death. Symbolic death occurred in the novel when Ruth’s family declared her as being dead to them and they even sat Shiva (Jewish ritual for the dead) to figuratively mourn her death. They did this because they were ashamed of the choices she had made. She had married Andrew Dennis McBride a black man and to make the situation even worse he was a Christian. This type of death had a negative effect on her family but resulted in a positive outcome for Ruth. It enabled her to overcome her troubled childhood, which included an abusive and unfaithful father and a crippled mother. By overcoming her past Ruth was able to live a satisfying life with her husband and their twelve children. Another example of symbolic death is when Ruth declares her old self, Rachel Deborah Shilsky dead, Rachel had to die for Ruth to live. The life Rachel had lived was too painful to look back on. When she turned nineteen she became Ruth McBride. Ruth also converts to Christianity as well as changing her name. Physical death is generally considered to be negative but in the novel the death of Ruth’s second husband, Hunter Jordan has a positive effect on her son James. Hunter and James were very close and after Hunter’s death James goes into a dark period of rebellion. James eventually begins to realize what an extraordinary person Hunter was. James strives to be more like him this striving helps James to end his life of crime, drugs and alcohol. This shows how death can have a positive effect on a person’s life. Over the course of the novel James is attempting to come to terms with who he is, due to the fact that he has a black father and a white mother.
Physical death and symbolic death are able to define and redefine James. When James was younger he defined himself as an African- American because he was dark skinned like all his family except his mother. During his childhood James was surrounded by dark skinned people and his mother acted as if she was one of them. James felt more comfortable around the dark skinned people. James is able to redefine himself when he uncovers his mothers past. James begins to accept who he is, by doing so James is able to disregard his race.
Death can either be positive or negative. A way a person can move on from it can sometimes determine if it is good or bad. I believe there are different kinds of death, emotional death and physical death. In the novel The Color of Water by James McBride, one of the main characters Ruth (the mother), experiences these kinds of death. Her experience with physical death was when her mother and first and second husbands past away. In this case, it was a negative effect on Ruth because the people she loved and cared for the most, died. For example, when her first husband Dennis past away, she moved on from it in a bad way. Of course she was going to be very upset because she loved this man, but she let it take over her life for years. She became very depressed and worried because she didn’t know how she was going to support her children. Ruth’s experience with emotional death was when she left home. When she was younger, Ruth had a very bad childhood. She had a father who would abuse her and occasionally rape her. She has a mother would was crippled and was not loved by her husband. And to top it all off, she was a Jew living in a Christian community. Kids would make fun of her all the time because of her religion. She never wanted to live like this and did not want her children to ever experience what she had to experience. When she was 18 she ran away from home and started her new life in New York. It started off a little rocky, but she was able to build herself up by getting a job and finding her soon-to-be husband. Over the years, Ruth and Dennis got married and started a family. Emotionally, she was able to move forward. In this case, emotional death is a good thing. Ruth was able to move forward from her unbearable childhood and start over.
Both physical and emotional death defines and redefines James. When James was younger his whole family was colored, except for his mother. Since he defined himself as colored, he spent his whole life trying to figure out why his mother wasn’t colored like him. Once James started to grow up and figure out his mothers past, he is able to redefine who he really is. This gave him the confidence to grow up and do what he wanted to do.
Realistically, there is only one type of death, which we all know as someone’s life ending. However this word can also be used in context to describe a different form of death, which in Ruth McBride’s case is a significant amount of change or transformation from one lifestyle to another. This is the kind of “death” that Ruth McBride went through in order to get from her Jewish life or her first family, to her African-American life, her second family. It’s what made her to be considered “dead” to the rest of her old relatives. So in this case, her form of death is certainly not negative because she had to undergo these experiences in order to live the life she really wanted. She may have had to experience some pain in order to get there and she may have had to abandon her old family, but in the end its what she was destined to do. This kind of death defines James McBride because he grew up living right in the middle of it, where he was able to experience all of it directly. He was able to learn the amount of trouble and work his mother had to go to in order to get to where she is now. It opened James mind to understanding and excepting anyone no matter what there race they are, because their history can have a great impact on who they are and how they act as a person. It also made him appreciate where he came from, and how he got to where he is today.
In The Color of Water there are at least two different types of death, the emotional death of Ruth McBride’s Jewish past, and the physical death of James’ father. Ruth’s emotional death was certainly positive, because it severed all connections that she had with the childhood that she loathed because of the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse she was forced to endure by her father, and the world, which scorned her for her religion. The loss of her past also benefited her by giving her a chance to start a new life in a new place. This new life resulted in Ruth having a large family, with lots of children who had no knowledge of their mother’s mysterious past, including her son James. James was defined by his relationship with his Christian mother, and knew nothing of her beginnings.
The physical death of James’ biological father and stepfather are both negative, because of the hardship that was brought upon the family after each of the breadwinners died. Each death brought a difficult period for James, especially the death of his stepfather, as he was too young to understand when his real father passed. After his stepfather’s passing, James’ good-kid attitude suffers an emotional death similar to the death his mother’s Jewish past had suffered earlier in the book. In this case however, the death is negative, and James slips into bad habits, such as doing illegal drugs, stealing, skipping school, and general naughtiness. Fortunately, he realizes that if he continues with this type of lifestyle, he won’t get anywhere better. As a result of his epiphany, James has another emotional death that puts his life back on track. These different deaths define and redefine James throughout the book as he goes in and out of his delinquent lifestyle.
Death can happen in many different ways, shapes and forms. Death is not something that we as humans want to think of. The unfortunate part about death, is that it has to happen regardless of what people do or don't do in their lives. The Color of Water by James McBride expresses the experiences that people encounter with death. For example, the main character, James, encounters many situations where death is the primary source. James' experience with death leads him to learn about his mothers past. For example, James' mother, Ruth, was abused as a girl. Her father did many inappropriate things to her that caused her to question herself as a person. Ruth was also a misfit; not many people accepted her for who she was. Ruth ended up starting fresh by moving to New York to escape from all the tragic events that have happened in her life. She felt that if she was going to be away from her family, that it was better if she never saw them again.
James was always a very well-behaved individual. He never looked for trouble, excelled academically, and always listened. This all changed when his stepfather passed away. This scarred James as an individual. Everything he did that was good, started to turn into bad habits. He started to commit crimes, skip school, and everything in between. After James was living the rebel lifestyle, he realized that the person he had become was not the person he is inside. James started to attend school once again, and made his way through college and essentially got a job. His stepfather's death seemed bad at the time, but in the long run, it helped James dramatically.
Death is a word that is often associated with feelings of sorrow and loss. Although many people find death to be a sad thing, death brings life and a new begining. Death can be the physical ending of ones life and it can also be a part of life that is left behind so that starting over and moving on is made possible. In "The Color of Water" by James McBride, Ruth McBride endured a death that allowed her to disconnect from her old life and start a new life disconnected from her past. Ruth had a very difficult childhood that consisted of sexual abuse, constant work at her family store, humiliation, and a mother that was abused by her father. As much as she didn't want that life, it was the life that she was given. However, in order to move on and live a good life, she had to die (give up her old life) and be reborn (start a new life). Through the death of her old life, she was then able to live a happy life with a man that she loved. Although death in many situations is a negative thing, Ruth McBride showed us that death can be a happy occassion that allowes one to move on with life.
Not all types of death are bad. There can be the death of a loved one which would of course be a terrible incident. Or there can be the positive death of a person’s old life that leads to them starting fresh. They go on to live a new and improved life with new journeys that will enrich their soul. In the novel The Color of Water by James McBride, Ruth McBride is an old white woman who rides her bike around New York, raises twelve black children, and is a devout Christian. Rachel Shilsky on the other hand, is an old, white, polish Jew who has an abusive father and a suffering mother whom the father pays no concern to, and couldn’t perform her graduation ceremony because it required walking briefly into a church. From these descriptions it is unfathomable that these two souls inhabited the same body. In The Color of Water the author writes, “I’m dead…she had to die in order for me, the rest of me, to live.”(McBride 2). The meaning of this quote is that Rachel has died and that her death was necessary in order for Ruth to be born. Rachel had a very rough childhood and when she moved away from the reminders of her awful past she forgot all about it and, for the most part, refused to talk about to anyone. She even changed her name from Rachel to Ruth and later married and became Ruth McBride. She even started following Christian beliefs after being a devout Jew. When the author writes “I’m dead…she had to die in order for me, the rest of me, to live.”(McBride 2) he means that part of his mother died which helped the mother he knew and loved, who married a black man, who never missed a Sunday of church, and who raised twelve black children, to be born.
I believe there are many different chapters in a person’s life. In order to let a new chapter begin an old chapter needs to come to an end. “She had to die in order for me, the rest of me, to live”(McBride 2). Death comes in many ways, like said in previous responses; people can die emotionally or physically. Rachel Shilsky needed to die emotionally in order for Ruth McBride to live. Ruth had to shed her previous life as a sexually abused, extremely obedient, Jewish girl, in order to live a new life in happiness. Shedding the pain and hardship Rachel went through opened up a new chapter in her life. She married, became a Christian, and a loving mother of twelve. In this case emotionally dying is not something negative it allows Ruth to live on with a new beginning. To die physically is when the physical aspect of a person dies. Even though the person dies they live on emotionally in the people that survive them. This can be both a positive and negative experience depending on the circumstances. Physical death is inevitable and surrounded by pain and very negative but has a positive aspect also. It is necessary to insure our future existence and allows new generations to lead.
James is a black boy who was born into an inter-racial family; his father was black and his mother, white. At an early age he bares witnesses and personally experiences racism and prejudice. He grows up in a rationally charged environment with respect to his mixed family, which leads him to ask lots of questions about his roots. He gets no answers from his mother so his curiosity builds. He experiences quite a few deaths in his lifetime both physical and emotional. The first death he experiences is the physical death of his step father, Hunter Jordan. Although away a lot, he was the only male role model and father figure in James’ life. When he died a part of James died too, ending a major chapter in James’ life. In contrast to the emotional death his mother experienced this was a negative one. The curious, selfless, sweet boy in James died and was replaced with a reckless teenager. James becomes reliant on drugs and develops a violent, angry, rebellious attitude. This forces him to drop out of high school and enter a world of crime. Thankfully in time the rebel in James dies which again redefines his life. He discovers his mothers past which she already detached from. This reality allows James to be able to accept his pain and let it die as well. James McBride, always interested in the music and literature, begins a new life as a devoted writer and musician.
In the modern culture death is generally taken as a negative word, due to its most common use being biological death. Death is, in this most basic sense, considered an end, a loss, even a hardship for those left behind by the deceased. While the death of a loved one is an unhappy experience, it is not the only form of "death." Ruth allowed her Jewish self to die, because it had brought upon her hardship and sadness. She wanted love, and that was something which her Jewish upbringing had not provided in excess. This is one sort of death, allowing a part of oneself to die so that a person can experience things, like love for Ruth, and so that they can improve their life. This sort of death is not negative, or sad. It is a new beginning which can give rise to a happier future. When Ruth's first husband Andrew "Dennis" McBride died, and also when her second husband died, she experience another form of death. This sort of death is purely internal, and can be negative. It is closely linked to biological death, it is in fact caused by it. This death is not quite an end, it is more of a bump which causes life to slow down for a bit and seem different. In Ruth's case, she had lost the love which she held so dear. This seemed to be the worst thing that could happen to her, but she lived on, as did her children, and they thrived.
James is, at one point, defined as a rebellious boy who has taken advantage of the state in which his mother is left in after the death of his stepfather. He made friends with the wrong people, and became involved with drugs and crime. He allows this to overtake him and define who his is. But he finally realized he wasn't going to get anywhere, no matter how smart he was, if he kept living the way he had been. It was this he discovered from Chicken Man, the old man he spent time with on the "Corner" when he was sent to stay with his older sister in Kentucky. When he returned to New York, he redefined himself and started working harder in school so that it would really matter how smart he was. He let the old James die, just as his mother had let her Jewish self die.
When most people think of death, they associate it with when someone is gone. They are never coming back. They will never see that same person again. This is true in physical death, where the person is mourned and buried. Another form of death, like Kelly G said, is when a “part” of somebody dies like an internal death. This was what occurred to Rachel Deborah Shilsky as told in The Color of Water by James McBride. Rachel was born into a Jewish family where she was mistreated, abused, and unloved by her father. She loved her mother but after a while, she could not bear it any longer. She decided to, literally and figuratively, run away from her Jewish self and after a while, she realized that in the process, her Jewish side had died. This case proves that not all forms of death are negative because her Jewish side dying produced great results. After Rachel died, Ruth was born. She became a Christian and was able to raise her twelve kids her own way yielding impressive results. “In running from her past, Mommy has created her own nation, rainbow coalition...” (McBride 277). The author, James McBride experienced some internal death as well. At one point in his life, he constantly did drugs, stole, and skipped school. He was always in an identity crisis, he was unsure if he white or black. One day hanging out with some people in Louisville, KY, James realized that if he continued to lead this lifestyle that he would end up nowhere. That side of him eventually died and the “new” James turned to God for help and he learned to embrace himself as both black and white. He would later become a successful writer and musician, again proving that not all death is bad.
There are two types of death discussed in The Color of Water, by James McBride. The first type discussed is not an actual death; it just means that the person that “dies” can no longer have any interaction with the people who proclaimed the person dead. This happens to Ruth Shilsky in the novel. Ruth goes against her Orthodox Jewish father who wants her to have an arranged marriage, and stay at home and work in her parent’s store.
Ruth leaves already being married to a black man name Andrew Dennis McBride. After this her father and the rest of the family proclaims her dead and sat Shiva for her which is what the Jewish people do when a person dies. Ruth had tried talking to members of the family but they always hung up on her and said she was dead to them.
The second type of death in the novel is an actual death. Ruth’s mother dies after Ruth was banished from the family and Ruth was not allowed to see her before it happened. Dennis, Ruth’s first husband also dies leaving Ruth and eight children. After Ruth remarries, her second husband, Hunter Jordan, dies also.
Usually neither of these cases of death are happy. However, in the novel, the first case could be considered good for Ruth. After Ruth “dies”, many doors open for her. She no longer has to listen to her father and can do almost anything she wants. She does not need an arranged marriage and can marry whoever she wants, she does not have to eat kosher foods. She did this before she “died” but she now had nothing to stop her from doing what she wanted.
What is death? Is it the end, or a new beginning in someone's life? For most people, death is an event which marks the end of a long journey which is usually met with sadness. For others death is not viewed as the end of a journey but, the start of a new one.
In The Color of Water Rachel Shilsky grows up as a Jew, in the South during the 1930's. Ever since she was a little girl, her father would sexually abuse her and was very strict and mean. She was an outcast at school, and as a result her only friends were African Americans. Her daily routine was working at her father's store for long hours until she went to sleep. This was hard work and left no time for herself. As result she decided to leave the south and her family behind in order to start a new life. When she left home her family excluded her from their lives and considered her dead. Realizing that her family would not help or talk to her again Rachel Shilsky had to die in order for Ruth Mcbride to live. After this happened Ruth Mcbride began to live in New York and for the first time in her life felt happy and started to enjoy life. Even though death is usually a negative event in a person's life which causes great sadness, sometimes the only way for a new person to live is for an old part of that person to die. These types of death define and redefine the main charachter James at the end of the novel by showing how he changed from when he was a criminal at 14 to a college graduate and writer when he grows up. These types of death show how part of James had to die in order for a new part of James to live.
In my way of looking at life, there are simply two types of death. A mental death can be described as if something devastating happened to you or somebody close and your whole perspective on life changes. Your personality, the way you look at your friends, etc. Now a physical death is just dying where it can be in a accident, or just simply of natural causes or diseases. Now what I believe the quote, "She had to die in order for me to live" means that Rachel Shilsky had to leave her life, for Ruth to live. Ruth changed her name from Rachel to Ruth for a fresh new start or so she could accomplish her life's goals, and not live they way the old Ruth (when her name was Rachel) lived.
Not all deaths are negative though physical ones affect others such as your loved ones. Negative deaths can be positive in my opinion. They can teach you lessons, but then again they can also turn you into someone you really aren't and hurt your life. When James's stepfather died, he was doing drugs and skipping school and hanging out with a bad group of kids. But he also became much closer to his mother which is positive. It may be hard to think negative deaths are always bad, but they can sometimes be good too. I do not think all deaths are negative in any way.
All the deaths James experienced in his life, contributed to his success of going to college and had a career in journalism. He went from and old bad kid who was up to no good, who would most likely have a bad future, to a good kid who would want to succeed and live a positive life. He let the old James die, mentally. Deaths are not always negative and after death, there is a new start.
Throughout life a person may experience a few different types of death. There is an emotional death where a part of a person, or in some cases a whole person’s moral would die. This would be a negative death if their moral dies, but what if a nasty attitude that they once had faded away? That would be considered a good death, wouldn’t it? There is also physical death when a person’s body physically is no longer living. Throughout the novel The Color of Water, James McBride experiences both of these types of death. For instance, James was redefined when his step-father, Hunter, passed away. Hunter’s physical death made James look back at all of the times together so James realized what an amazing person he was, and how much Hunter did for his new family.
Anthony N
People can suffer many types of death. You die literally, you could lose someone dear to your heart, or you can endure the type of death Ruth McBride suffered. Ruth’s death had nothing to do with her or someone she knew literally dying, but instead Ruth made a change for the better. Ruth left her old self to become someone she had always wanted to be. Someone who didn’t judge a person by the color of their skin. And someone who lived life to the fullest no matter how bad the circumstances. In order for her to become this person Rachel Deborah Shilsky changed her name to Ruth McBride. And with this Rachel Deborah Shilsky died to make way for a new chapter in her life, a life in which she would be known as Ruth McBride.
When we think of death what do we think of, Sadness or mourning? But not all deaths are negative. Ruth’s “death” is an exception to this. When her old self died it gave way for a new chapter in her life, and it allowed Ruth to be a better person. Becoming this new person allowed Ruth’s troubles and sorrows fly free and give her a piece at mind. This “death” that Ruth suffered was certainly positive. The new chapter In Ruth’s life not only made a positive impact on her life but it influenced other people’s lives for the better as well.
At the end of the novel these types of deaths define and redefine James McBride. The deaths that his mother suffered define who he is today. At one period of time in novel James suffered addiction to alcohol and drugs. Once learning the sketchy past of his mother he redefined himself and started getting into music and writing. He turned his life around and got into college and is now succeeding as a professional writer. Not all deaths are negative and they can have positive effects on the people around them.
Death as we know it is the action of dying or being killed; the end of the life
of a person. In the book "The Color of Water" written by James McBride,
it is portrayed that death can be viewed by two standpoints. One standpoint is the face that death is positive, the other being that death is a negative factor.
In the Color of Water, the main character, Rachel Shilsky, was a young girl growing up during the 1930's with her Jewish family. Her father was sexually abusive to her and was very strict. She felt dead to her family so she ran away and died as Rachel Shilsky. She changed her name to Ruth McBride to live again. She got married to a black man and embraced life at her fullest. Not all deaths are negative like this one, but the main thing is to move on with life. It's the cycle of life and all lives come to an end. At the end of the novel, the types of death define and redefine James life. He ended up failing out of school, reverting to the streets, and breaking the law. But then his family set him right and he was able to find music and activities to give it a new purpose.
In The Color of Water there are two ways to look at death, physical and emotional. An emotional death was the death of Ruth McBride’s past and a physical is the death of James father. Ruth’s emotional death was definitely positive, because it cut off all connections that she had with her evil father. With the past left behind she had a chance to start a new life. In her new life she had a large family, with lots of children who had no idea who their mother ways because of her mysterious past.
James was already a very well-mannered boy. He always stayed away from trouble, and always followed his mom’s orders. For some reason James started to change good habits to bad ones. James started to skip schools and even started robbing. James realized he did not like what he had become and tried to return to his nice self. He went to college and stopped robbing and eventually got a job. His step father death seemed bad at first but proved to do more good to James then bad.
The types of death people can encounter are either mentally or physically. The physical death is at the end of your life when you can longer breath or have a pulse. The physical death is the most feared and most talked about death. Mostly because once your dead, there is no coming back. In this case it was a mentally and emotionaly death, Ruth's Jewish side died in her. “She had to die in order for me, the rest of me, to live” infers that if she were to still have her Jewish beliefs, James most likely wouldn't be alive. If James were to be Ruth's Jewish child, it would have been very difficult for him to live a safe life. Not all death's are negative. In The Color of Water, a positive mental death was Ruth's death of her Jewish side or when after James' step father died and James' started making bad decsions. A positive death for physically could be if an elder was suffering from cancer for a while. It would be better for the elder to die. In many cases, there are negative deaths. These deaths lead to many emotional times. Of course many are feared of death because of the uncertainties. However, not all deaths are negative.
These types of death affect James both positively and negatively. When James' step father died, James was effected emotionally. This caused James to skip school, take drugs and steal from where ever he could steal from. When Ruth found out about James' failing grades, she acted fast and sent him up to Harlem. After he thought his life over, he quit taking drugs. The positive sides to his stepfathers death was that he became much closer to his mom. James helped his mom out every which way he could. He went to Oberlin College, got many jobs, and when he saw his mom was suffering he moved her to Deleware. All the types of death that James went throughout his entire life helped him define who he was as a person.
The Colors of Water, by James McBride, gives us a new look on what death is. When we think of death we think of a someone being taken from the earth. Their physical bodies are no longer with us. In the book The Color of Water, by James McBride, not only do we see that physical death in Ruth’s mother, but we also see a death in Ruth McBride and James McBride’s lifestyles. Ruth McBride decides once she moves out of her childhood home that she was going to ignore everything that was going on in her life and start completely fresh. She had an awful childhood and decided to leave everything of it behind. Therefore she moved to New York and married a black man, which was completely against her families rules. After doing this she was not aloud to ever go visit her family, Ruth McBride’s family decided to drop her from their lives. She was dead to them, and therefore she was making them and her old life dead to her. She also changed her religion from being a Jew to becoming a Christian. She changed her name from Rachel to Ruth, all of this to get rid of her old life. James McBride went through a time in his life where he wasn’t caring about school, hung out on the streets, did drugs, and drank. His lifestyle was very far off from what his mother wanted for him. He wasn’t taking care of himself or making smart decisions. His drug addiction was becoming out of hand and he couldn't keep a steady job. Once his mother finally decided to let him in on her past life, he was able to further identify who he was. This totally changed his attitude toward his life. Religion became very important to him and he was able to change his ways and become successful. In my opinion, not all deaths are negative. James’ death was in no way negative at all. His lifestyle completely changed and he was headed in a more positive direction in his life. It redefined him because now he was a successful man who was ready to take on what the world was going to give to him. Ruth’s death was positive and negative. It was positive because she had a very bad past and didn’t have a supportive family so she needed to go away and find a new life. It was also negative because even though she didn’t have good family, her mother was very sick, she needed someone to take care of her and Ruth was the only one that could but she ran away instead. Therefore before Ruth’s mom died, her family told her she wasn’t aloud to visit her in the hospital, this broke RUth’s heart and it shows that dropping your family completely is not a good idea.
When most people hear the term death, they usually associate it with a person physically dying. i believe that people can experience many different types of deaths, whether it be a physical, emotional, or mental death. Emotional and mental deaths can occur when someone goes through a traumatic event that alters who they are as human being. Deaths don't necessarily have to be viewed in a negative perspective. In fact, sometimes they are necessary in order for the person to move on. Throughout the novel The Color of Water many different examples of deaths are shown to the reader. "You're out of the family. Stay out. We sat shiva for you. You can't see her" (216). This is an example of what can be considered an emotional death. This was the end of a big part of her life, her family. Although this was a very difficult time for Ruth, i believe it was a positive change and had an enormous impact on who she was as person. This 'death' she experienced opened her to a whole new chapter in her life. James experiences many different deaths through out his life, these events are what define and redefine him. James spent most of his childhood trying to figure out why he and his brothers and sisters were colored but his mother wasn't. Unraveling his mothers past enabled him to further understand who he is. James experienced both positive and negative deaths, all of which played a big role in him developing into the man he is today.
The Color of Water, by James McBride, shows us many different ways that death can be experienced. It can be experienced both mentally and physically. In The Color of Water both deaths occur. Ruth McBride and James McBride both leave parts of them behind when they feel it’s needed. Ruth McBride grew up in Virginia and had a very rough childhood. Her father mistreated her and once she turned nineteen she decided to leave her life behind and start fresh. She moved to New York and married a black man, which at the time was frowned upon not only in society but also in her family. In order for Ruth to do all this she had to die in her old life to live in her new life. Once she married a black man her family was done with her. To them, she was dead. She changed her whole life around; she became a Christina instead of a Jew. She also changed her name from Rachael Shilsky, to Ruth McBride. She wanted to completely forget about her past. James McBride went through the darkest time in his life. He would hang out with the wrong people, do drugs, get drunk and get into bad situations because he wasn’t attending school. James went through this for quite some time until he finally realized that this isn’t what he wanted. Not only was it that he didn’t want it, his mother didn’t want it for him either. He decided that he had to leave that part of him behind. He didn’t want to be that bad kid anymore; he wanted to be his true self. In order for him to do this the bad kid inside him had to die. James went through many deaths in his life. His biological father died before he was even born. Ruth McBride remarried and James’ step-father was practically his father. James’ step-father raised him and made him the man he became to be. His step-father died which left James, Ruth and the rest of the family devastated. James saw how much it hurt his mother and that made it hurt even more for James. A few years later Ruth died. This was the hardest on James. It made him realize how important family really is. Ruth’s death was both positive and negative. It was positive because it showed James that you can be your own person. Ruth never took anything from anybody. She would ignore all the comments people would make about her children’s skin color. From this James learned that not everyone is perfect. It was also negative because Ruth didn’t have a connection with her family. This made James realize how important family is. He saw how his mother was hurt cause of it and learned from it. All these types of death that happened through out James’ life defined how he was as a person.
Death can have many different meanings in the sense that you can be mentally dead where you are no longer living or you could be mentally dead where you have just given up on living. Also, you could be dead to other people this is what happened to Ruth and her family. Ruth’s family did not want anything to do with her. This happened because Ruth moved to New York and started her own life and left her family to branch out and start over. This death is both positive and negative. It is positive because Ruth got to start a new life New York but it was negative because Ruth lost her family forever.
A Death that defines James is when he let his past die. He started over and fixed his whole life which is a new beginning or letting his old ways die and try to leave his past behind him. With his new beginning he started to become successful with everything he did school, work and music. James death was a good thing it actually helped him just like Ruth’s did as well. James later would learn about the life his mother left and reason she left her family to begin with. This made James track down his mothers past and see the church his father had made years ago. That church would not have even been there if it hadn’t been for Ruth being dead to her family so she could achieve her goals in life just like James later did aswell.
A person’s death usually means that they have passed away and that it is a negative event. What Ruth McBride means when she says “I’m dead.” (McBride 1) is that she is going to forget her past. On the next page when she says “She had to die in order for me, the rest of me, to live” (McBride 2), what Ruth means by this is that she is going to make a new identity and start her live over. As a little Jewish girl growing up in the early 1900s was hard, her father was abusive toward her and was strict. She was forced to work in the family store and wasn’t allowed to do much as a child so she ran away in her late teens. Ruth’s death was an exception to a negative death because this was for the better. These types of deaths define the main character James McBride because when his own father died, his life went bad. James started smoking and stealing therefore becoming a criminal. When he came to his senses he decided to stop his wrong doings because he saw what happened to his mom. He knew if he stayed on the path he was on he would steer away from family like his mom had faded from hers and he didn’t want that. He made his father’s death into a positive thing for himself and his family as did Ruth for herself and her life ahead.
Daniela Gusmano
The Color of Water
James McBride
In the Color Of Water by James McBride, death can be viewed in two ways, both physically and mentally. Ruth says “ She had to die in order for the rest of me to live” ( McBride 2), which meant how she had to forget about her past, whether it was good or bad, in order to have a meaningful future for herself. She wanted to see the world in a whole other prospective after she left home. Ruth was looking for a love which she found in her first husband and the loss she felt when he died. She experienced the same love and loss with her second husband. She had to deal with heartbreak and struggles while raising her children. Although she knew her mother loved her, she had no control over her father who sexually molested her. He treated her more like a slave than his own daughter. She felt sadness in hearing of her mother’s death and relief in hearing about her father’s. In my opinion, seeing everything that Ruth had gone through in her life, shows that not all deaths are bad because she managed to provide a better life for her and her family. Even though there were multiple struggles along the road, she got herself back together. Ruth has been a big part in James‘, the oldest child’s life, and how he grew up. Everyone knew of how strong of a women Ruth was, and James idolized his mother for her strengths. He realized that she had to put to death her Jewish religion, customs, beliefs, and her family (mother, father, sister, and aunt) in order to start living. As James grew up, Ruth hadn’t opened up to him about her past. Once she did, sharing her deepest secrets to her son and sharing her journey from one life to another, showed James how much of a strong person he can be. So he put aside his troubled past and redefined himself to becoming a successful journalist.
Death is typically portrayed as a scientific end to life. In many cases, this is the only way people think of death. Death, however, doesn’t always mean the end of a person. Death can many times be the loss of part of a person. After a traumatic experience, a person may never be the same. Although not necessarily dead, the person has changed so much that they are not the same. A part of them has been lost forever and can never be retrieved. Ruth McBride was born a European Jew, and later immigrated to the States. At the time of her immigration, Jews were not widely accepted in America, so adapting to the greatly different American culture for a Jew in the thirties and forties would be difficult. When Ruth says “I’m dead” (McBride 1), she obviously doesn’t mean that she is physically dead. She means that her history prior to her immigration is gone. Ruth explains that “She had to die in order for me, the rest of me, to live” (McBride 2). Ruth Shilsky with her Jewish and European childhood would not mix in with American culture, so she left that part of her behind. Ruth McBride was the new creation she formed herself in order to blend in. Death is not always negative. Some occasions an undesirable piece of somebody must be left behind in order to move on with a different life.
This novel talks about two different types of death. One type of death is shown when Ruth's mother dies or when Dennis dies, This being actual death. Death is'nt always bad, like when Ruth's mother dies it didn't seem bad. She was lonely and Ruth's father treated her bad. but in Dennis' case it was bad cause he died of cancer. The other type of death is what both Ruth and James went through. this is a type of death where you forget your past and try to start over. Ruth expierienced this when she left the south and her jewish orthodox self behind and moved up to new york to work with her aunt. This decision was good for Ruth because she made friends in new york, she met dennis while working for her aunt, and she became christian. James also expierienced this when he decided to leave bad high school days of doing and dealing drugs behind him and become interested in his studies. This decision also worked out well for James because he ended up graduating high school and graduating from Oberlin College. Also because of his decision he became a journalist. Both Ruth and James decisions to start over and let their pasts die had a positive impact on the rest of their lives. Death can be either positive or negitive.
Typically in life, there are 2 types of death, physical and mental. Physical death is when a person actually dies, and mental death is when a person has to leave behind some of who they are in order to move forward in their life. Ruth had a troubled childhood; her abusive and strict father was the main problem she faced. She was forced to work in her father’s store and eventually left her family when she was a teenager, mainly because she was not allowed to do any of the things she wanted to do. Ruth’s “death” was actually a positive decision because she was going to put her life on the path she wanted to be on. Those types of death also reflect on the main character, James McBride, because James was mentally unstable after his father died and he had a rollercoaster of emotions. His father’s death not only made him emotionally unwell, James began to lose himself, he began to smoke and drink and steal on the streets, and he knew in the back of his mind that this was not the life he was meant to live. James recalled what had occurred with his own mother, and he did not want to end up like that, and be “dead” to his family. James turned his father’s death from having a negative impact on James’ character, and turned it into a positive influence on him to be the person he was meant to be, which the same as Ruth is, how she decided to leave the haunting of the past behind her, and move forward into the better times.
Death is a part of a natural cycle that every human experiences. This cycle can take place an infinite number of times during a person’s life because there are multiple types of death. He can go through a psychological death when he gets emotionally detached from a part of his life. The other type of death is physical death when one’s life ends. Although death is usually perceived as a horrible event, it can be positive. Psychological death is almost always good because when one portion of a person’s life ends, a new beginning follows. This allows him to take control of his life and make new, positive choices. Physical death usually causes sadness but still has the possibility to impact someone else’s life in a positive way.
James McBride had to go through and adapt to many deaths in his life that ultimately shaped him into the man that he became. One of the first deaths he experienced was the physical death of his stepfather. James’s mom was devastated when her second husband died, and she began to act out. With James’s household falling apart in front of his eyes, he lost his motivation to succeed. He moved to Kentucky to live with his sister Jack and found himself hanging out on the streets, using drugs and alcohol. James then experienced a mental death. He took the advice from his friend, known as Chicken Man, to leave the self destructive and carefree James behind and improve himself to become self reliant and have a fulfilling life. With the death of his street life he was able to pull himself together and go to college and eventually become a journalist.
The most standard meaning of death is loss of a life. Although, looking more deeply into other aspects of death, there are many other meanings. Some may look at death as a grim and negative occurrence but it can have positive effects, it just depends what kind of death. Death can happen due to realization that the way a person has been living is not the right way or when one wants to leave a life behind that was cruel and painful. In The Color of Water, the realization that Ruth made is that she wanted to be who she felt she was destined to be. She was in love with a black man and she came to the realization that that was all that mattered. Because she chose this way, her family sat shiva and declared her dead. If nobody would accept her even after that decision they weren’t worth her time. She was also reborn to a new life. Her new life was as a Christian woman who left Judaism behind. She left her life as a white woman behind and merged with black culture. She went to a black church. All of her friends were black and she appreciated her new life. She did not regret her decision, luckily, because it would be difficult to go back. The main character James was heavily influenced by his mother. If she had not died to her Orthodox Jewish life, he a black American, would never have existed. At the part of the story where James is hanging out on the block and doing drugs, his “revolution”, he comes to a realization. The chicken man, his best friend at the time, tells him “this is not the life you want to live”. He says that if you’re as smart as you say, you would stay in school. James realizes that he does not want to spend to rest of his life as a failure and die in a fight over a bottle of wine or drugs. The thug part of James dies and James is reborn as an intellectual and the man he was destined to be, a journalist and an accomplished man.
People suffer many different types of death. In some cases, people are terrified of the very word “Death,” but what people often don’t understand is that without death, life could not exist. It is the circle of life where in order for something new to rise, something old must fall or die. If you look at it from this perspective, death can be viewed as a positive. Not only is death a part of life, but there are many different forms of death. Many of these exist outside of the physical death-- no vital signs, such as emotional death or the death of a personality. Not all death is negative, particularly when the death allows for something new and better to come forth and become something new and better than what was left behind.
In The Color of Water many deaths occur, some that are positive and some negative. The one that stands out to me that was for the best was the death of Ruth McBride’s past self Rachael Deborah Shilsky, the Jew from Suffolk, Virginia. This death of a past self, this loss of a personality was the death of the old Rachel and the birth of the new devout Christian Ruth McBride. While certain types of death can be positive, it is only natural when something or someone dies to grieve and feel sadness, but the important thing is that people must move on from it and don’t grieve for too long. People shouldn’t allow grief to consume them. They must carry on and understand it’s only the natural course of events. When someone dies emotionally they have withdrawal from emotions, and they refuse to experience or feel the emotions they feel generally due to a traumatic event. McBride shows this through his mother’s loss of emotions for her father after her abuses her and her mother. These types of death continually define James throughout the novel. The death that occurred has shaped him into the man he is today and will continue to do so. Ruth refused to allow her children to question her other past. This lack of knowledge and questions lead James to search for himself when he goes down south and hangs out on the corner with the riffraff. James was a pot smoking bum but he realized he didn’t want to live and die like that. He made the conscious decision to let part of himself die so the mature “new ready for the world” James could come out and join the adult world.
These two positive deaths of past personalities have defined and then redefined and in turn molded James McBride into the type of author and person he is today. Not all death is negative. If that death makes room for something new and good, than the loss of that thing of the past and that death can bring oneself to a new state of self awareness.
In the novel the Color of Water by James McBride, the author explains how death changed his mother Ruth and himself. People can suffer many different kinds of death, such as death from disease, an accident, a violent act, or even from old age. Death is a part of life. It will eventually happen to all of us. Some deaths can be extremely hard to handle like losing a child or someone you love. People who suffer with an illness have to do through a painful life till death. Not all death is negative though. Many people live a very long and happy life, and are ready to experience what is beyond. Others may want to change things that have happened in their lives and start over again. People can change their lives by letting go of the past and looking for a better future.
James experiences, many different kinds of death in his life. Being torn between what was his ethic background, and where did he fit into the world. At a young age James rebelled against his life. He started doing drugs, steeling, and dropped out of school. When he finally realized his life was going nowhere, he too died and started a new life. He retraced his mothers past and found his own new life.
Death is portrayed in two ways physical death and the mental death. One is the end of life, and another is to end and begin a new life. Although some may be a loss but others may be for the best. When you think of death you see graves and funerals but not all deaths leave you in the ground. Ruth had surpassed a mental death of her past family and the pain it caused her so she left it in search of a new and better life. This ultimately ended her up with a family she loved with a life she loved.
Physical Death of a loved one could be tragic in all aspects of your life. When you hear the word death is someone actually dying. This affects the loved ones of the victim through grief and sorrow although it seems negative now but it may help you in the future because James stepfather who he looked up to and loved had died. He later then did become something of himself he strived harder to be a better person and get far in life. He left behind his old troubled life from when he moved to be a new and more positive person.
In my opinion death is just where something, or in Ruth’s case, a part of someone, ends. I feel that in many cases death is negative. Such as a divorce, an argument that leads to the estrangement of two loved ones, the end to a particularly great experience, etc. All of these situations and many more leave people sad for weeks, months or even years. That being said, death, or an ending can also be very positive, such as in Ruth’s case when she leaves behind a terrible childhood to start a new life. Ruth’s first life as an orthodox Jew was a bad experience and that is mainly because of her father. When she decides to leave behind that life for a better one, her old family acts as if she was really dead. They had a traditional Jewish funeral, said the mourner’s Kaddish and sat Shiva. In many ways it was a real death. She rid herself completely of that past life; she abandoned her family, her hometown, and her old name. All of the before mentioned deaths were mental. It is important to not forget the physical death which leaves a tremendous emotional impact on family and friends for years to come.
At the end of the novel, James undergoes a positive mental death. When his stepfather Dennis died, James slipped into bad habits such as drug addiction. All of that changed when he is accepted into Oberlin College. The old, drug addicted James dies, and James is redefined by this death to become a successful journalist. He is clean, has discovered faith and more about his family. He learns the true story of his mother’s past and learns to form his own identity.
There are many types of death people can suffer from. Many deaths are caused by some sort of sickness as in cancer. Some deaths are caused by murders, war or are accidental. Few people die when in their sleep. Not all types of death are negative. If a person was terribly ill death can take them out of the misery they were in when they were living. Sometimes death isn’t as painful for the person as it is for the family. When a friend or family member is suffering so much and has gone through so much when that person passes those around him/ her realize they are resting in peace and are in a better place than they were before. Murder is a type of death which is only negative. When one person kills another there is not one positive part. When a person is killed in war it could be said to have been both a positive and a negative because they died for something they cared so much about but then they are leaving whatever family and friends they had. These different types of deaths define and redefine James because towards the end of the book when he left New York he was relieved that his “grandmother had not suffered and died for nothing” (229). This means that she has not died in vain and she will and has been remembered just like those who have died fighting for their country and what they did will never be forgotten. The deaths redefine him because he says how he couldn’t cry anymore but he had a different feeling that formed inside him when he found out about the deaths in his family. By trying to find out more about his family and what happened to them, he found out more about himself.
There are several forms of death. Death usually signifies the end of a life or the end of a journey. A person may experience several deaths throughout their lives. People move through their lives; changes constantly being made which allows them to redefine themselves. There are positive deaths as well as negative. After a person experiences something tragic they have the opportunity to recreate themselves and learn. Ruth McBride had her heart broken several times throughout her life. Her father molested her when she was young and that took a real toll on her self-esteem. Some of her confidence and emotion died with her as a child. She was considered dead to her own family, who preformed a Shiva after she decided to marry a black man. One of the most difficult deaths in her life was the death of her second husband Dennis. Dennis always had faith in Ruth and coached her through the toughest times of her life. She converted to Christianity, and her Jewish faith as a child vanished. When Dennis died it had an affect on James, her son. James always obeyed his mother and he kept very good grades. After Dennis’ death he reverted to drugs and was disobedient and failed his way through school. The death of Ruth’s mother was both positive and negative. It was positive in the fact that she would no longer have to deal with her father whom she feared. However, it was negative in the fact that her mother was a very influential part of her life. James’ search about the childhood of his mother allowed him to find out more about the most influential person in his life, and find out more about himself.
Literal death means that you die and your body no longer functions and literal death might mean that you cease to exist as you were and that you can be reborn to start a new life. All death is not bad, in the case of Ruth McBride she had to die from her old life as a child of a Jewish family and be reborn as a wife of a black man in New York. She wanted to begin a new phase of her life and knew she would be thrown out of her family. Her family mourned her as if she had actually stopped living. Ruth was determined to raise her family with her black husband and not worry about her past. She was from an unloving household where her father was very mean and hurtful. Her death was symbolic of giving up her old life for a new one that she chose and for Ruth it was a good event, not sad.
James watched as his mother fought to give him and his 11 brothers and sisters a better life. After losing his natural father his mother had to return to the Jewish community for favors. She was not shunned and was given many things to help. She met Hunter Jordan soon after James was born and his biological father had passed away. Hunter raised James and was a critical part of his life. James saw many physical deaths, literal deaths, and most importantly rebirths in his life and was able to live a good life. James knew his mother had many figurative deaths in her life, first from her family, and next when his father died suddenly.
Death, something negative yet positive at the same time. It is not only the end of someones life, but the beginning as well. In the novel The Color of Water, Ruth McBride needed to leave her family in order to start a new beginning and a new family. Though it was very hard to leave her sister and cripple mother, it was more than easy to leave her abusive father and the town folk who mocked her. Besides, everyone in town, including her family, considered Ruth dead to them because she had gotten pregnant by a black man. So she left and completely forgot about her family in order for her to continue on with her life, half of her had to die for the other half to live. So Ruth began her new life with James' father, James being her son. James McBride grew up in a small apartment with twelve other siblings, and a secretive mother (Ruth) that never talked about her past, or even talked to her children for that matter. James could never understand, he became frustrated, not only with his mother but with his life. He later got dragged starting drugs, no going to school, and hanging out with the wrong people. Later in the novel James realizes that this isn't the life he should be living. So he decided to leave that lifestyle, he let the bad boy in him die in order to let the good boy live. He later became a Journalist and lead a very successful life. So death is not negative, it's positive. It can end bad lives to start new good lives.
People can suffer many different deaths. They can suffer deaths of a mindset, deaths of a way of life, and deaths of their family, friends, and aquaintances. These deaths can be either mental, or physical, but they are mostly mental. Deaths are stereotyped by many as a sad occasion, but they don’t have to be negative. When a negative mindset dies, such as James’ racism and stereotyping of white people, that is a positive, and he recognized it as such. When “Rachel Shilsky” dies, that is an event with both positive and negative repercussions. She is detached from her family and comfort zone, but she is able to gain mental freedom, in that she is able to think how she would like and have her own opinions (like those about the like and dislike of black people), and physical freedom, in that she cannot be abused by her father anymore. A simple death of a person would most likely be negative however. At the end of the novel, these types of deaths define and redefine the main character, James, in ways such as his Mom’s death of her fear of telling her children about her past. This allows him to gain insight into his ancestry and why his life is the way it is. That is a healthy process for him. Also, (as I stated earlier), the death of his racism and stereotyping of white people when he is in college and later in his life allows him to build more stable relationships with white people, ones that were necessary and good for his functioning in the world. He enjoyed having best friends that were white towards the end of the book. That is how these deaths define and redefine James.
Sydney Cardoza
People can suffer many different types of deaths, you can die as a whole or parts of you can die. When something tragic happens in your life and you go into a state of depression/, its better to let that part of you and whatever you are holding onto die so you can go on and live your life. Being strong sometimes means being able to let go. In my opinion not all deaths are negative. When someone physically dies that can be negative but if you had a bad habit like smoking or drinking or something small like biting your nails and one day you decide you want to quit and eventually let that part of you die, that could be a positive death. James was always passionate about writing and music, he also got into doing drugs and drinking. James eventually realized that drugs and alcohol were what was stopping him from being successful and turned to God and his old life as a druggie died and let himself live the life of a Journalist. This part of James’ life proves that death doesn’t have to be negative. James was strong and because of that he was able to let go of his bad past and lead a new life that allowed him to be successful.
In my opinion there are various types of death. Physical and emotional are the most common deaths. Although I do not believe that all deaths are negative. Some deaths are for the best. In the “Color of Water” Ruth wants to have a different lifestyle, the South just isn’t cutting it for her. She emotionally is dead and wants to start a new life in New York, she wants her life to be reborn. She wants her new life with James in New York and escape all the bad memories of her old life. I think that physical death can be good and bad. A physical death can be bad if the person is young and healthy and have their life taken away because of a tragic accident, like James died after Ruth had her eighth child. Physical death as well can be a positive thing, for example an old person who is very sick and is in a lot of pain. As a result of James’ death Ruth dies emotionally again. “The Color of Water” proves that there are many types of death, and how they can be positive, negative, or both.
Most of the time, the word “death” is used very casually. Although it shouldn’t be, it is human nature to think of it just as we would think of any other word in the English language. In the novel, “The Color of Water” by James McBride, Ruth really has deep thoughts and deep meaning behind the word. “I’m dead. You want to talk about my family and here I been dead to them for fifty years” (McBride 1). When Ruth is saying this to her son, James, she doesn’t mean that her family really thinks that she is dead, but rather that in order for her to make a better life for herself, she had to sacrifice having them in her life. People can suffer from two types of death, a positive and a negative death. One person is able to experience both types. The type of death that Ruth is experiencing in the passage mentioned above is both positive and negative. It is positive on one hand because she is making the sacrifice of eliminating her family from her life to better hers. But on the other hand, her family is suffering a negative death; they are “losing” a loved one. At the end of the novel, James rediscovers himself in the sense that he embraces his religion deeply and accepts his difficult background.
There are two different types of deaths that people can have. Both types of these deaths can be negative but also can be positive. The first type of death someone can experience is an emotional death. What that means is that someone is so emotionally scared that they can no longer feel emotions. This death is negative because it leaves the empty shell of a person. In a way Rachel died an emotional death when her family said that she was dead to her. When she then later changed her name to Ruth which symbolizes the passing of one life or death and the birth into another. The reason she did this is so that she could get over her old painful life and have the chance to start a new. As for James as a child he experienced many deaths and was headed down a deep dark tunnel with a very unhappy ending. He was then able to change is path and climb out of the hole that he put himself in and turn his life around. The only reason he was able to do this was because he was able to kill his old mental self. The other type of death that can happen to someone is a physical death. This type of death does not affect the person it happened to but the people close to that person. That persons death can have a both positive and negative effect. The positive side is they use that death and its circumstances to change and better themselves or cause them to due emotionally.
People can suffer multiple kinds of deaths. You can die a negative death, a positive death, a normal expected death, or a metaphorical death. A negative death is an unexpected death that could drastically affect a family. Most deaths are negative. When Hunter Jordan died, his wife Ruth and the children (including stepson James McBride) were all devastated. A positive death is one that ends a life of suffering. If someone finally gives into a disease like cancer, it could be considered a positive death because the suffering has ended and the person is at peace. A normal death is an expected death like dying of natural causes at a really old age. A metaphorical death is like letting go of a big part of your life. It’s like killing off a piece of your past or a side of you that you don’t want to admit. It’s like part of you died and it’s never going to come back to you because you left it forever. When Ruth says she is dead, she is referring to the fact that she is dead to her family and they even sat Shiva for her. In her past, she was an Orthodox Jew named Rachel Shilsky. Ruth had to let the Rachel part of her life die to let go of her past so that her true identity could be revealed and she could begin living a happy life. James was affected by these many types of death. When Hunter Jordan died, James turned to drugs and alcohol and was letting his life slip away. When James witnessed the negative death of Chicken Man, he cleaned up his ways, went back to school and turned to God. When he learned the whole story of his mother’s metaphorical death, he realizes that his mother gave up a lot for him and his siblings and worked to become as strong a person as her.
People can suffer two kinds of deaths, physical deaths and emotional deaths. Both involve suffering. Physical death is a death as a result of something happening to you like murder, car accidents, etc. Emotional deaths are when you have completely lost all hope and are not able to function anymore. Suicide is an emotional death. In my opinion, an emotional death is when your body cannot fight any longer and eventually your body just breaks down.I believe that death is a good thing. Death means you are at peace with god and at peace with yourself. It is your exit from earth but you spirit will be still live forever. Not all deaths are negative because some deaths take you out of your suffering. No one wants to live there life in pain and agony they would rather be in peace. A negative death for example would be someone murdered for no apparent reason. There was no need for that to happen. It is very tragic and leaves everyone upset and devastated. God has a plan for everyone and sometimes you might not agree with that plan or it might not make sense to you but in the long run it pays off. Death signals that it was your time to leave the earth and go to a better place. Nobody will know what heaven is like until you die. In the Color of Water Rachel Shilsky dies in order for Ruth McBride to emerge. Rachel Schilsky had a terrible childhood and terrible father and needed to start a new life. She even changes her religion to help her find happiness. In doing this she loses her family but she was starting new so none of this mattered to her. Rachel Shilsky was a prime example of an emotional death. She was an orthodox Jew as Rachel Shilsky but changed to the Christian religion as Ruth McBridge emerged. With her new life nothing seemed to bother her and it was a change for the better. When James step father dies it impacts his life negatively. He drops out of school and starts doing drugs. It takes him awhile to get his life back in order and figure out what he wants to do with it. During that time period he was always getting in trouble and never wanted to share his emotions with anyone, not even his mother. When James step father died James died emotionally and defined himself as a bad kid going around stealing things, smoking reefer, hanging around the corner, etc. He eventually recuperated and made something of his life. James went to college, got a degree, and pursued his passion. He played the saxophone and became a writer and that REDEFINED his life. The whole family died emotionally when Dennis died and were defined as depressed (especially Ma). Over time they recovered and as a result there life was redefined and they became closer as a family. The moral of this story is that death can devastate people but the strong fight through it and grow as a person. Death can motivate someone to work harder and give them and their families better lives.
Evan Brady
The Color of Water
Life ends whether you want it to or not, life is a journey, but the journey must come to an end and this is what The Color of Water is mostly about. Death could also be a hard end to someone’s life. Or the people in your life who loved and cared about the death that had happened. Death can be positive when something new and different has arrived in the world as a person. A negative death in the book is when the death of Dennis had overcome his family. Dennis was a good person, strong as he suffered from cancer for months in the hospital. Dennis was a big part of the family, and he supported the family in many ways. Ruth experienced a positive death. Rachel Shilsky was a Jewish girl that lived in Suffolk, Virginia. Rachel died (mentally) when she grew up, moved to New York, and married a Black man. After the death of Rachel came the birth of Ruth. Ruth was a Christian girl in New York. In the book, Ruth explained that she never actually happy until the day she became a Christian and her life was better after Rachel “died.” James’ life had its ups and its downs of its own. He was always a good child that did well in school and obeyed his mother and his older siblings. Then, when his mother’s second husband died, James “died”. After that, he started committing crimes, such as stealing and dealing with drugs. He stopped going to school. But later, James got his life back on track. He stopped committing crimes and went back to school and later on went to college. In the story, there are positive and negative “deaths”. James’ death was a positive, because it leads into him getting his life back together.
Death can have good consequences that have just as much wait as the bad ones. When Mameh died close to the ned of the novel, it was at first very tragic and said but Ruth reflects later that Mameh died in order for Ruth to live. However, when Dennis died, that was probably one of the most horrible part in Ruth's life, even worse then Mameh's death. Nothing good came out of that death. She had half of her children with one husband and half with another and that created a rift between the two groups of children. There is also a third type of death in the story. When James Mcbride is going through his drug phase, he is dead but in a different sort of way. When he realizes this and comes back to life, spirtually speaking, and comes to appreciate the life that he has and decides to document that by becoming a journalist. So, in conclusion, death is both negative and positive and so is a natruel part of life.
When people think of death, they think of physically dying. What i believe is, its possible to go through many types of death in the course of ones own life, whether its a physical death which is the loss of life that everyone must endure, emotional or mental. a mental death is the loss of a part of a person or a leaving behind of oneself. when a person goes through an awful or great experience, this could change them and make them never the same, like dying and losing themselves.
Ruth's life was a horrible one, her father was very strict, abusive and raped and treated her like a slave. Things were not going the way she wanted in anyway and she had to leave her life and start a new one, she left her family for a better future. She needed to die, or lose herself in order to start a new and better life. This isn't necessarily a bad mental death, she needed to leave and this is good that she started a better life for herself, even if it meant losing her family.
Because of james' ethnic back round during this time, he was not treated right, james started smoking, doing drugs, hanging around the wrong kind of people and was doing wrong. He decided he needed to make a change for himself and started going in the right direction with his life. He died and began a new life, just like Ruth.
In the novel The Color of Water by James Mcbride, death is an occurring theme. One can experience death in multiple ways some of which physical and mental. The first line in the novel starts off with, “Im dead,” spoken by James Mcbride. As a kid growing into his teens , James goes through life as a darker skinned kid living in the city with a white mother, when James’ step father hunter died, James realized how much of a good man hunter was after his death. On the second page of the novel, James’ mother, Ruth, stated how she had died in order for James. Ruth as a child was bullied because of her religion and sexually abused by her father. She wasn't allowed time to live so she died in that life and was reborn into a new life in brooklyn. In her families eyes she was dead. Growing up James found himself in a bad neighborhood. This lead him to hang out with the wrong group of kids and making bad decisions . As he grew older, james woke up from his death and changed his ways. He noticed his lifestyle was not only hurting him but his family as well, especially his mother. James learned by his mistakes and decided to make a change for the better.
In life, there is so many ways that people die and it is tough to see them go. In my opinion, there is two types of deaths. There is a quick death and a long death. A quick death is a situation where you get shot and die, get a stroke, get in an accident, ect. A long death is a situation where you have been sick or hurt in any way and you keep persevering to stay alive but the dieseases take over and the body can not take it anymore. My opinion on death is that when you see someone die on a tradegy it is very sad, but when you see for example someone that is very sick and just is not able to enjoy life anymore, it can be good to let them go up to heaven and have a new life. In The Color of Water, James loved his mother very much. He spent time with her, he took care of her, and he showed his mother that she was safe because of him. When James's mother Ruth dies, it is terrible to see a family member go but James understood that death is a part of life and his mother worked so hard and went through so much trouble to make James and the siblings be the people they became. I think this death defines James as a loyal person and he showed that he really loved his mother. I think it redifines him because it gives him a chance to think about the death and what Ruth could have done differently, and what he can change about him now. When he was a teenager, he was into drugs and alcohol and was getting into a lot of trouble and based on his mother dying, he can reflect on that and change the way he wants to live. To me, death is sad, but it is part of life.
People can suffer all sorts of death. One type of death people can suffer is a death of someone close to them, especially the death of a parent or a child. Sometimes death can be very difficult. One minute someone you love is there and the next minute there not. It can be very hard to get over that loss and move on. Death can be a positive and negative effect. The death of a child can be negative as it can be hard for a parent because it’s not the natural cause of events and sometimes that can make a parent angry and bitter. This would have a negative impact on a person personality.
The positive part is that when someone realizes who they truly are and they aren’t proud of whom they are now, they can change who they are and make things right for them. This type of death is letting go of their past and becoming who they really want to be.
At the end of The Color of Water, James has a new perspective of who he is and he learns to be proud of who he is. As he was growing up he always wondered who his mother really was. He wanted to know where she can from and what she was like when she was young. But she would never tell him or any of his siblings anything. Since she is white he always wondered and asked why she looked so different from him and his siblings. When James was an adult Ruth opened up to him and told him who she was before she meet his father. James learned she was once a Jewish girl called Rachel Shilsky and lived in Suffolk, Virginia. She abandoned who she was to be who she really wanted to be. Ruth could not become an adult and have her own life if she lived with her family. It was too difficult for her to separate from them and become her own person unless she physically separates from them. In some ways moving away to New York was the death of her childhood. She left her family and everything else behind her in order for her to be herself. Learning this, James knows how strong his mother is and how she can be proud of herself and her family. The “death” of Rachel Shilsky redefined James of who he is and at this point James has learned to be truly proud of who he is, his mother, and his family.
Realistically, there is only one type of death, which we all know as someone’s life ending. However this word can also be used in context to describe a different form of death, which in Ruth McBride’s case is a significant amount of change or transformation from one lifestyle to another. I think that death can be both good and bad. For example a bad death is a car crash, and a good death is when your fighting the pain and you try the hardest to stay alive and you really cant control if you are going to die or not. In my point of view a physical death is when you physically die. Also a mental death is going through a dramatic change in life or having really bad family problems and having a family member physically die and you mentally dying because of what happen. Sometimes people have to mentally die to find their true identity. Mental deaths connect to one of the main characters. James went through a mental death in his child hood. During this time he decided to do drugs because he realized that he was mentally dying. So he dropped out of school, didn’t care about anything at all besides getting high.
Realistically, there is only one type of death, which we all know as someone’s life ending. However this word can also be used in context to describe a different form of death, which in Ruth McBride’s case is a significant amount of change or transformation from one lifestyle to another. I think that death can be both good and bad. For example a bad death is a car crash, and a good death is when your fighting the pain and you try the hardest to stay alive and you really cant control if you are going to die or not. In my point of view a physical death is when you physically die. Also a mental death is going through a dramatic change in life or having really bad family problems and having a family member physically die and you mentally dying because of what happen. Sometimes people have to mentally die to find their true identity. Mental deaths connect to one of the main characters. James went through a mental death in his child hood. During this time he decided to do drugs because he realized that he was mentally dying. So he dropped out of school, didn’t care about anything at all besides getting high.
I believe that death can be defined and be expirenced in many different ways. Death can be physical, when something has ended and mentally when you exterminate a part of you and become something new.I believe that death is not always negtive but it can be positive, for example in the Color Of Water by James Mcbride ,the main character Ruth Mcbride ,formally "Ruchel Dwarja Aylska" was born into a polish orthodox jewish family. "Ruchel's" life growing up wasnt very easy, she was physical and mentally abused by others around her. Ruchel was molested and abused by her father the Rabi Fishel Shilsky.Her mother was very sick wirh polio she was completly paralized on her left side ,she was harassed by her peers and only had one friend that she could actually trust. Ruchel decides to escape from her early life and started a new life by moving to New York and married an Aferican American man named Andrew Dennis McBride. In the process of Rachel's new life she changed her name to Ruth Mcride and erased the fromer life as Ruchel Fishel Shilsky and started a new one has Ruth. This type of death in my opinion is postitive because your trying to start something new instead of dreading in the past and let your past expirences make you into some sort of person that you are not.Ruth says “She had to die in order for me, the rest of me, to live" ,i think what Ruth meant was that in order for herself to become something that her early life as "Ruchel" had to be forgotten or else she can feel selfpitty and turn into some sort of monster .
Physical death is when your heart stops beating and you are not conscious. In the Novel ,Hunter Jordan, Ruth's second husband, fatherd four of Ruth's twelve children, James knew Hunter as "Daddy" even though hunter was not his father. Hunters death had a impacted the family tremdously expecially james. While everyone mourned Hunters death, James began failing his classes and turned to drugs and crime. Ruth turned to her blue bicycle ,which shed always ride everywhere. Ruth delt with her sadness by the constant need by riding her bicycle. this can be an example of a negative effect that death has on a person.
I believe every thing happens for a reason and death is just a appart life. In the Color Of Water,i thought death was defined has the end of suffering but the experience for one for one to reflect on the past to and to continue to live thier life without grudges and to have good morals. I think James McBride realized the bad life that he was living wasnt what the life he wanted to live.James had hope and by looking back on his mothers life and his earlier life helped him define him as a person and helped him become a Journalist. I believe everything happens for a reason and "death" helped both Ruth and James realize there can be a new beginning and to have hope, therefore death can be positive as well.
I believe that death can be defined and be expirenced in many different ways. Death can be physical, when something has ended and mentally when you exterminate a part of you and become something new.I believe that death is not always negtive but it can be positive, for example in the Color Of Water by James Mcbride ,the main character Ruth Mcbride ,formally "Ruchel Dwarja Aylska" was born into a polish orthodox jewish family. "Ruchel's" life growing up wasnt very easy, she was physical and mentally abused by others around her. Ruchel was molested and abused by her father the Rabi Fishel Shilsky.Her mother was very sick wirh polio she was completly paralized on her left side ,she was harassed by her peers and only had one friend that she could actually trust. Ruchel decides to escape from her early life and started a new life by moving to New York and married an Aferican American man named Andrew Dennis McBride. In the process of Rachel's new life she changed her name to Ruth Mcride and erased the fromer life as Ruchel Fishel Shilsky and started a new one has Ruth. This type of death in my opinion is postitive because your trying to start something new instead of dreading in the past and let your past expirences make you into some sort of person that you are not.Ruth says “She had to die in order for me, the rest of me, to live" ,i think what Ruth meant was that in order for herself to become something that her early life as "Ruchel" had to be forgotten or else she can feel selfpitty and turn into some sort of monster .
Physical death is when your heart stops beating and you are not conscious. In the Novel ,Hunter Jordan, Ruth's second husband, fatherd four of Ruth's twelve children, James knew Hunter as "Daddy" even though hunter was not his father. Hunters death had a impacted the family tremdously expecially james. While everyone mourned Hunters death, James began failing his classes and turned to drugs and crime. Ruth turned to her blue bicycle ,which shed always ride everywhere. Ruth delt with her sadness by the constant need by riding her bicycle. this can be an example of a negative effect that death has on a person.
I believe every thing happens for a reason and death is just a appart life. In the Color Of Water,i thought death was defined has the end of suffering but the experience for one for one to reflect on the past to and to continue to live thier life without grudges and to have good morals. I think James McBride realized the bad life that he was living wasnt what the life he wanted to live.James had hope and by looking back on his mothers life and his earllier life helped him define him as a person and helped him become a Journalist. I believe everything happens for a reason and "death" helped both Ruth and James realize there can be a new beginning and to have hope therefore death can be positive as well
death is not always a bad thing but rather, a new path. there are many types of death but the most commonly known is to perish. one of the other kinds of death is when you leave a part of yourself behind, like an improvement. the kind of death when you leave a part of yourself behind is certainly not easy or quick but it is possible. this is proven through the character of ruth mcbride in the color of water. as a child ruth was made fun of and even sexually abused by her father, and had almost no time to herself. but when she left her jewish lifestyle behind and moved to new york (which is strange because new york has a very high percentage of jewish people) she then met james' father in new york and had kids with him. he died as ruth was pregnant with james, so james was always curious about his mother, because he did not look like his mother. ruth then re-married to someone who served as somewhat of a father figure to james because he never had a father at all (symbolically). through the death of Ruth's' past self she was able to live for the first time..
The dictionary definition of death is “the act of dying: the end of life: the total and permanent cessation of all the vital functions of an organism.” (Dictionary.com) This is what is typically thought of when death is mentioned. While death is a part of life, it is human nature that the passing of someone close evokes sadness and is negative. The book, “The Color of Water” uses a symbolic meaning for death. In many instances throughout the book, death is used to signify the end of part of a person’s life. Ruth’s family mourned her when she married a James’ father, a black man. While the literal meaning of the death is negative, the symbolic meaning can be positive. Ruth describes “She had to die in order for me, the rest of me, to live” (McBride 2). Letting go of her upbringing, and sometimes painful past allowed her to find happiness and raise 12 successful children. James, the main character in the book is defined and redefined by both types of death. He experiences tremendous loss and sadness when his step father Dennis dies. When the Chicken Man dies, James turns around his life because of his influence of his advice. As a journalist, interviewing his mother, he finally gets answers to his true heritage and comes to have revelations about race that allow him to move forward successfully in life.
Death can be viewed in different ways, depending on how people feel about it. Some people view death as a horrible part of life and others look at it as a unwanted but apparent part of life. When young, innocent, and naive people die it is a very gloomy sad and depressing part of life. People are murdered when they might have deserved it but most likely not have, and they could have lived their life much longer and much fuller, this is very sad. But when an old or just struggling being dies it is viewed as a good thing that all the pain and suffering is over, and that they just are tired and they have had it. There is other thing that people call “death” it can just be that your personality or your being is left behind, forgotten, or changed for better or worse.
In the story “The Color of Water”, Ruth the mom removes herself from the Jewish community, changed her name, religion, family, and life. She also disobeyed her father’s guidelines to not marry a black man, she married two. She is then considered “dead” to her family and community. While this split her up from her family, it allowed her to have a family of her own that she dreamed of. James on the other hand gets a bad view on death when his father dies a very unfortunate and painful death and he looks at it as a negative death and not a good thing. And after that fact James’ stepfather dies and he then goes down the drain and skips school, and does drugs, making that death negative to him too. But on the same note that it hurt him, it also benefited him in the way that he got much closer to his mom. This shows that death can not only hurt someone but benefit them, or just be looked at as a normal part of life. And no matter what, you have to live with it for now.
There are multiple ways people can die besides the physical definition of the word. Some are negative but some are positive. One way a person, like Ruth in the color of water, can die is to leave one way of life and start another. The way Ruth dies is she leaves her jewish family in Suffolk, who disown her, and marries Dennis in Harlem. When they marry she also converted to christianity, which gave her a feeling of new life because she chose it on her own and wasn't forced into believing in what her parents did. This "death" was not negative and in fact positive for Ruth because she was happier and living her own life the way she wanted.
Death in the physical form, like the way James's stepfather Hunter Jordan died is a part of life. The death is unfortunate and although not meant to, it had a negative effect on James. Because of the anger and sadness he was feeling he turned to drugs, theft and eventually stopped going to school entirely. It was not until James went to Kentucky and spent time with the men on the corner did he realize what path he was going down and how he could avoid ending up like Chicken Man and taking charge of his life.
These types of death have their own negative and positive effects and James is defined by how he deals with the effects and learns to move on and grow with the change.
Death can be both good and bad depending upon the situation. There are many different types of death that someone can experience. There is physical, emotional, mental, and characteristic death. Each type of death delivers a different emotional response that could be good or bad. In the novel,"The Color of Water" by James McBride, death takes on many different roles, both good and bad. To Ruth's family, Ruth was emotionally dead to them. However, despite this, Ruth viewed this as a chance to be reborn and live her life for herself. After failing school and turning to drugs with the death of his stepfather, James went through a mental death. After this he reevaluated his life and tried to change it for the better. He turned to God, stopped drug dealing, and became a journalist, with his rebirth, his old life died to make him a better man. To feel like he truly knew himself James, throughout the course of the novel, discovers his mother's personal history. With this new knowledge he feels more balanced. He also feels that he understands himself better. His family's history helps him to understand who he truly is. The different types of deaths experienced by the characters throughout the novel affected each in his or her own way.
Death has many meaning like something ending or even beginning. I do think death can be very happy. With death comes a new beginning or an end to suffering. I think James McBride comes to realize that he is not satisfied with himself and what he is doing. He found religion, and his old life died and his new life as a Journalist had begun. His past of drug dealing and crime had ended and his new life of focusing on his studies had begun. James McBride’s mother suffers throughout her early childhood. Her father beats her, she is ridiculed at school, and she only has one friend who she can trust and be comfortable with. She decides to leave the south and come to New York in order to escape from her past. Her family acts as if she is dead when she goes to New York. James McBride’s mother, Ruth finds that she can start over in New York. She has fun and does what she wants. I think death can be sad in many situations; you miss something that is no longer going to be there or just that you can never go back to how things were before. With death comes a new beginning, death doesn’t always have to be negative in fact death can sometimes be a happy occasion.
Jeremy Ramos 9/1/11
English- Pd.9 Blog – Color of Water
Not all Deaths are necessarily bad most deaths can be good because with death always comes rebirth. People can suffer all kinds of deaths weather it be physically dead, mentally dead, or emotionally dead but for Ruth McBride it was a physical and emotional death this is because when she decides to ;eave her family to go to New York they disgrace her and pretty much single handedly killed her in their minds she was dead to them and se didn’t really care because from every death there is always a rebirth by leaving her family behind she was moving forward in reality if she stayed with her family she wouldn’t have gone as far as she had in life.
Ruth also had a tuff time in school if it wasn’t her family that was holding her back it was her tormentors in school she went to an all white school because her mother insisted that she have a good education. That’s where she spent most of her life hiding from the people who called her a Jew or maybe a black or something discriminating because her parents were in a interracial marriage
Jeremy Ramos 9/1/11
English- Pd.9 Blog – Color of Water
Not all Deaths are necessarily bad most deaths can be good because with death always comes rebirth. People can suffer all kinds of deaths weather it be physically dead, mentally dead, or emotionally dead but for Ruth McBride it was a physical and emotional death this is because when she decides to ;eave her family to go to New York they disgrace her and pretty much single handedly killed her in their minds she was dead to them and se didn’t really care because from every death there is always a rebirth by leaving her family behind she was moving forward in reality if she stayed with her family she wouldn’t have gone as far as she had in life.
Ruth also had a tuff time in school if it wasn’t her family that was holding her back it was her tormentors in school she went to an all white school because her mother insisted that she have a good education. That’s where she spent most of her life hiding from the people who called her a Jew or maybe a black or something discriminating because her parents were in a interracial marriage
Death can be classified as good to some people, and bad to others. In a good case, some people may think that it's a start of something new. Others may think that you didn't get to completely live out their life. In the novel The Color of Water, the main character's mother went through a lot in her childhood. Her father was not really fond of her, so he mistreated her. Also people made fun of her at school, and she only has one person that she can trust. It gets so bad to the point where she decides to move from the south, and come to New York. Her family acts as if she is not alive anymore, once she moves away. Ruth, James McBride's mother finds that she has the perfect chance to start a new beginning for her, and her kids. To me death is sad, but can be peaceful for the person that has passed. Not all death is negative, because the person that has passed could have been suffering for a long time. Once they pass, they don't suffer, they don't feel pain or anything. James McBride realizes that he was going down the wrong path which is not what he wants to do. The drugs were not the right thing, so he changed his life by turning to god. Also he started something new by becoming a journalist. With him doing that, he turned a new leaf over of his life.
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