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Identity in the Color of Water

  • Date Submitted: 12/03/2010 04:07 AM
  • Flesch-Kincaid Score: 59.8 
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At the very beginning of the book “The Color of Water”, one of the narrators Ruth told us she was “dead”. Indeed, Ruth was dead and completely missing her past since she determined to change her identity to relive her life. Why she wanted to do that? I thought the most important reason came from her family in Suffork. She was upset to her boring life and wanted to get rid of it —she got used to walk around store of her family all day; she was forbidden to pursue her true love by her father; she did not want to live in a family which was filled with so-called formalities but had no love. Eventually, she chose to leave her hometown and change her identity to pursue what she really wanted, to be self-fulfilling and then to relive her life. There are three important ways Ruth changed her life, all of which affected her identity; namely changing her name, religion, and environment. As a result, James, one of Ruth’s children and the author of the book, was deeply influenced by the process of the changing identity of his mother.
Firstly, I wanted to explain the effect of changing the name. Usually, name was the first thing jumped into people’s mind when they were asked what identity is. The reason was a person’s name was a symbol and the most distinctive characteristic of an independent individual. Name explains the issue about who you are. Therefore, changing name was the most obvious measure to change one’s identity. Ruth’s name was Rachel Deborah Shilsky after her family moved to America. “Ruth got rid of that name when she was nineteen and never used it again after she left Virginia in 1941” (McBride 2). Leaving Virginia was Ruth’s first step to start her new life. She changed the name meant that she said goodbye to her previous life and previous identity. She wanted to get rid of everything related to the past thoroughly.
Secondly, changing religion also had a vital partial effect on changing identity by shaping one’s values and outlook on world and life....
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  1. A better version of this paper...
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    • Dec 17, 2012 - Evaluator: (Jeannine)
    • I've copied and pasted below a revision of this paper that is more suited to be handed. Thank you for uploading this. Helped me alot. A Mother’s Impact on the World In James McBride’s autobiography, The Color of Water, his mother, Ruth, refers to herself as “dead”. Indeed Rachel, which is Ruth’s birth name was dead since abandoning her past in her determination to give birth to a new life under the nickname Ruth. Because of her oppressive father and way of life that her father created she no longer wished to live in a family that was so devoid of love. There are three important ways Ruth changed her life and through that, her identity; changing her name, religion and environment. Ruth who was deeply influenced by her parent’s also deeply influenced each of her children, especially James who grew up so torn between his Black skin and the curiosity of his white mothers past he spent much of his life discovering his mother in order to discover himself. This novel shows the great impact that even the subtlest actions from parents have on their children’s lives. James is showing how important a parent’s identity is to their children’s identities and how closely they are intertwined. Her changing of identity was the process of struggling with her fate. Ruth’s birth name was Rachel Deborah Shilsky after her family moved to America. “Ruth got rid of that name when she was nineteen and never used it again after she left Virginia in 1941”. Leaving Virginia was Ruth’s first step to starting her new life. Changing her name after she left was one of the first steps in her attempt to forget her past. Not only did Ruth leave her family and her name in Virgina but she also, most importantly, left her religion and home culture behind. Rachel grew up in an orthodox Jewish family. The negative experience she got from being an orthodox Jew was due to her father, Tateh’s, abusive and oppressive nature towards her and her crippled mother is what lead her to feel so comfortable among Black people who, although at first would be in awe, were the only people to accept her for who she was and did it with unconditional love. Although many people for their different race insulted them and their living condition was worse than her life in Virgina, Ruth was happy and generated the strong and active quantity to face these indignities. From being depressed to active, Ruth’s change came from a family filled with love. They were intimate and cared about each other rather than kept secrets like her relatives in New York. They could say the words like “I love you” which were forbidden in her previous family; something she learned from the negligence of her parents is good to have in her own family. With the acceptance and teaching of love through her Black boyfriend and the Black community they lived in, she happily left behind her religion. Previously she had no hope, no passion and no creativity in her life because of her home culture and religion. In 1942, Ruth determined to accept Jesus Christ into her life and join a Christian church. She abandoned Jewish formalities and achieved the freedom she desired from her fellow Black Christian’s. “Instead of eating kosher, using different table settings for every meal and eating all meat or all dairy dishes, I just ate what I wanted, I tasted pork chops and loved them”. This was in sharp contrast to her past life in the Jewish family. Ruth would not be limited by the principles of Jew and she was happy to accept Jesus. She got freedom and learned to be self-fulfilled through happiness and company from her new religion whose belief supported Ruth to pursue what she wanted and gave her courage to face the hard happy road ahead of her with strength. This made her more confident and strong to raise all of her children whom would all grow up with the love and family that she lacked in childhood. James mentions that she raised a family of 12 children who all carry themselves with dignity, humility, and humor; all extraordinary people and leaders who achieved a lot in life. All with honorable jobs and passions and all raised by the same extraordinary woman Ruth who had the strength to shed her childhood skin, Rachel. The researches of James Baldwin have shown that parental attitudes have an important impact on formation and development in children's personal qualities. If the parental attitude were always negative then the qualities of the children would be resistant and impassive. Baldwin’s hypothesized outcome is shown in Ruth when she decided to leave Virgina and Tateh rudely tried to force her to stay which resulted in an argument, Ruth not to come back again if she decided to leave home. Her mother, the opposite of Tateh, was gentle and meek but she was always silent to any decision made by her husband. Ruth’s father and mother’s personalities lead her to becoming “a rebellious little girl in [her] own quiet way”. Another example is the reason her father married her mother, which was to get a ticket to America rather than for love. Ruth realized that this kind of relationship was wrong because of the abuse that her mother suffered; it allowed her to see that it was important to be with someone whom you truly loved not just used because then they would be abused mentally the way her mother was. In “The Namesake” by Jhumpa Lahiri, the main character Gogol suffers an identity crisis just as James had. His parent’s were Indian and he was born in the United States; he was torn in-between his parent’s religion and home culture that they tried to instill on their first son and the American culture that surrounded him. As Ruth had, Gogol was so conflicted with his identity that he changed his name to Nikhil. Again, this is due to his parent’s who had chose to name him Gogol after a writer who’s book saved his fathers life, a name that isn’t even a Bengali name, a name he realizes in his adolescent years, no one else has. This is a great example of Baldwin’s research. Just as her parent’s caused her to grow and be Ruth instead of Rachel, she also impacted James’ identity; how could he know who he was if he didn’t know who his mother was? His identity crisis was a mix of the era and neighborhood that he grew up in with his strong white mother the center of his home and life. James grew up on Murdock Avenue in the St. Albans section of Queens, New York that was a largely Black neighborhood in the 1960’s when black power was in its prime. Ruth refused to acknowledge what James calls her “whiteness”; in-fact she avoided anything to do with race and identity. Never mentioning her past to anyone his brothers and sisters would trade information on their mother ‘the way people trade baseball cards”. But even though she withheld her past from her children at first she taught James, and the rest of her children that he should be persistent with his dream despite race, religion and even family. In a way her being so secretive about herself during their childhood is what truly led James into becoming who he was because what influenced his life and thinking the most was the curiosity he had about his mother. Her dream was to change herself and to relive life and she achieved it. Her spirit affected her children and contributed them to realizing their dream. This book had another name in its Chinese vision, “My Special Mother”. Ruth was special because she was a white woman in the black community. She was special since she was a mother of 12 children who were the best in their own field. She was special because she did not bend to her past and influencing her children who would all influence the world in great ways.

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