Summary: The Color Of Water By James Mcbride

Sources of Identity 10/14/13

Without rebellion where would our society be? People discover their differences through rebellion. It is a necessary part of growing up, and is essential to finding a place to fit in the puzzle of the world. In the memoir The Color of Water by James McBride, both characters, Ruth and James, grow up in communities where they feel like outcasts. James is biracial but appears black, and goes to an all white school. Ruth was raised as an orthodox Jew in a non-Jewish community. Ruth and James strive for acceptance and find it through insubordination; by rebelling against society both Ruth and James find themselves. They do so by going against their parents, finding a different community and religion.
James was a straight A student. Like his most of his siblings, he was intelligent and on the ‘right’ path, but this all changed when James’ stepfather, Dennis, died. He made a turn on his path of life and started to associate himself with the wrong crowd. The structure holding up his life decayed. Dennis was always pushing all of his children to succeed academically and when he died school became insignificant to James; he started doing drugs and getting into trouble with the help of other people. Dennis wasn’t only the structure of James’ life but also Ruth’s and when he died, Ruth mentally collapsed. James’ took advantage of this and did what he pleased, ”I would just go out. There was no one to tell me not too.” (138). He rebelled against Ruth and distanced himself from her. James had to find a new mentor to lead him because he didn’t know his place in life anymore. His grades went down, he failed his classes, and stopped showing up to school. He began to associate himself with the wrong crowd, and smoke, drink, steal, mug, and deal drugs. He was out of control and no one was around to stop him. His mother sent him to his sister’s house to be “straightened out.” It is there he meets a group of men that hang around on the street all day. This was James’s “true education” (p. 144). Basically, they consist of drunks and stoners. By rebelling he felt liberated, “I turned 15 on the corner, but could act like I was twenty-five and no one cared.” (147) One of the men who particularly stand out to James is Chicken Man. James starts to look up to him, an old drunk, who substituted the role his stepfather played. One day James gets into a fight and seeks advice on revenge from Chicken Man. Chicken Man being wise and sober at the time says, ”You don’t know shit from Shinola,” he said. “Is that how you want to end up, goin’to jail for him? Because