AS SEEN IN JAMES McBRIDE’S
THE COLOR OF WATER
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree ofSarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
FONNY PANGARUNGAN
Student Number: 014214124 Student Registration Number:
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
AS SEEN IN JAMES McBRIDE’S
THE COLOR OF WATER
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree ofSarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
FONNY PANGARUNGAN
Student Number: 014214124 Student Registration Number:
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA 2008
THE MAIN CHARACTERS’ DEVELOPMENT
AS SEEN IN JAMES McBRIDE’S
THE COLOR OF WATER
By
FONNY PANGARUNGAN
Student Number: 014214124 Student Registration Number:
Approved by
Dra. Theresia Enny Anggraini, M. A July 12th, 2008. Advisor
THE MAIN CHARACTERS’ DEVELOPMENT
AS SEEN IN JAMES McBRIDE’S
THE COLOR OF WATER
By
FONNY PANGARUNGAN
Student Number: 014214124 Student Registration Number:
Defended before the Board of Examiners On July 24th, 2008
and Declared Acceptable
BOARD OF EXAMINERS
Name Signature
Chairman : Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd., M.A. __________________ Secretary : Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka, M.Hum. __________________ Member : Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka, M.Hum. __________________ Member : Dra. Theresia Enny Anggraini, M. A __________________ Member : Ni Luh Putu Rosiandani, S. S., M. Hum. __________________
Yogyakarta, July 24th, 2008 Faculty of Letters Sanata Dharma University
Dean
Dr. I. Praptomo Baryadi, M. Hum.
paths.”
Proverbs, 3:6
I thank the one and only Saviour, Jesus Christ, a great power beyond everything. You promised to be there for me, continuously, and You have proven to me that You never let me down. I thank You for being my guide and friend.
My deep gratitude goes to Dra. Th. Enny Anggraini, M.A., my advisor, and Ni Luh Putu Rosiandani S. S., M. Hum., my co-advisor, who helped me to finish the writing of this undergraduate thesis. I am really grateful for the assistance they have given through consultations during this undergraduate thesis preparation process.
I will be always thankful for my beloved parents’ unconditional love and endless support during the process of writing this undergraduate thesis. I also thank my beloved siblings; Jane, Anny, Yuny, Fajar and Karyn, who keep believing in me and keep encouraging me to achieve my goals.
I thank Agi whose support has made me stay strong to face my fear. Finally, we did not make it!!
To the one and only, my Miss Secretariat, Mbak Niek, thank you for the assistance you have provided in every my “Ms. Enny ada?” visited.
Thank you to everyone at Domby Kid’s Hope; K’Ady, K’Ira, K’Tary, K’Tata, K’Richard, K’Ian, K’Joint, Santi, Sinda, Monda, Ian and Margareth. Thank you for supporting me through each of your prayer during the process of finishing my undergraduate thesis.
Fonny Pangarungan
TITLE PAGE ... i
CHAPTER I : INTRODUCTION... 1
A. Background of the Study... 1
B. Problem Formulation ... 5
C. Objectives of the Study ... 6
D. Definition of Terms... 6
CHAPTER II : THEORETICAL REVIEW... 8
A. Review of Related Studies ... 8
B. Review of Related Theories ... 9
1. Theories of Characters and Characterization ... 9
a. Characters... 9
b. Characterization ... 10
c. Character Development... 12
2. Theories of Setting ... 12
3. The Relations between Character and Setting ... 14
C. Theoretical Framework ... 15
CHAPTER III : METHODOLOGY... 16
A. Object of the Study... 16
B. Approach of the Study ... 17
C. Method of the Study... 18
CHAPTER IV : ANALYSIS... 20
A. Description of the Main Characters ... 20
1. Ruth McBride-Jordan... 20
2. James McBride... 29
B. The Influence of Family, Religion and Society as the Setting... 33
of the Stories toward the Main Characters’ Development 1. The Influence of Family... 34
a. toward Ruth McBride-Jordan... 34
b. toward James McBride... 43
2. The Influence of Religion ... 50
a. toward Ruth McBride-Jordan... 51
b. toward James McBride... 56
CHAPTER V : CONCLUSION... 67
BIBLIOGRAPHY... 69
FONNY PANGARUNGAN (2008).The Influence of Social Setting toward the Main Characters’ Development as seen in James McBride’s The Color of Water. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.
This thesis examines the influence of family, religion, and society as the setting of the story toward the main characters’ development as seen in the book of James McBride’s The Color of Water. McBride presents family, religion, and society as his setting in recreating his mother’s life and his life as well in this memoir.
This thesis focuses to answer the problems on how the main characters are described in the story and to show the influence of family, religion, and society as the setting of the story toward the main characters’ development.
The examination is done by analyzing each of the characters who are considered as the main character in the story. In describing the main characters, the analysis is focused on the dialogue and the action of the characters. The examination later continues by analyzing how family, religion, and society as the setting of the story influence the main characters’ development. Since the writer considers the work as a sole object, and emphasizes the analysis based on the work itself, then the writer employs the New Criticism approach to perform the analysis.
The results of the study show how family, religion, and society influenced the main characters’ development. Ruth’s unpleasant memory of her father’s parental tyranny forces her to leave home to start her own life. Meanwhile, James’ lack of family background information makes him confuses to shape his self-image as a mixed-child. Religion, a strong belief in God, has made Ruth decided to convert to Christianity from Judaism. She believes that she becomes a new person when she accepts Jesus into her life. As for James, his belief in God has helped him to leave the crack world and stop being a crack addict. He believes that because of God’s help he can change into a better person. Society also influenced Ruth and James’ character development. Ruth marries a black man that brings negative judgment from society for she is a white woman. It makes her instilled the notion into her children that only school and church are important. And as for James, his problem with racism in society makes him to instill the pride of being a black man in his self when he becomes a grown-up.
FONNY PANGARUNGAN (2008).The Influence of Social Setting toward the Main Characters’ Development as Seen in James McBride’s The Color of Water. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Skripsi ini membahas bagaimana pengaruh keluarga, agama, dan kelompok masyarakat terhadap perkembangan karakter tokoh utama yang ada dalam buku The Color of Water karya James McBride. James McBride menghadirkan keluarga, agama, dan kelompok masyarakat sebagai latar dalam bukunya saat menggambarkan kembali kehidupan ibunya beserta kehidupannya sendiri.
Fokus penelitian ini membahas permasalahan bagaimana penggambaran tokoh utama dalam cerita dan pengaruh keluarga, agama, serta kelompok masyarakat, sebagai latar cerita, terhadap perkembangan karakter tokoh utama. Penelitian dilakukan dengan menganalisa dua karakter berbeda yang dianggap sebagai tokoh utama dalam cerita. Dalam menggambarkan kedua tokoh utama, analisa difokuskan pada dialog dan aksi tiap karakter. Penelitian dilanjutkan dengan menganalisa bagaimana keluarga, agama, dan kelompok masyarakat mempengaruhi perkembangan karakter tokoh utama. Pendekatan yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah pendekatan New Critism. Pendekatan ini dipakai karena penulis menjadikan karya James McBride sebagai satu-satunya obyek dan sumber dalam penelitian ini dan menekankan analisa berdasarkan karya tersebut.
Hasil studi memperlihatkan bagaimana keluarga, agama, dan kelompok masyarakat memberi pengaruh pada perkembangan karakter tokoh utama. Kenangan tidak menyenangkan yang dialami Ruth karena didikan secara tirani oleh ayahnya memaksanya untuk meninggalkan rumah dan memulai hidupnya sendiri. Sementara itu, kurangnya informasi mengenai latar belakang keluarga membuat James bingung untuk membentuk gambaran dirinya sebagai seorang anak campuran. Agama, rasa percaya yang kuat pada Tuhan, telah membuat Ruth berpindah dari agama Yahudi ke agama Kristen. Dia percaya bahwa dia menjadi manusia baru ketika dia menerima Yesus kedalam hidupnya. Bagi James, kepercayaannya dalam Tuhan telah menolongnya saat dia meninggalkan dunia obat-obatan terlarang dan berhenti menjadi pecandu obat-obatan terlarang. Dia percaya karena pertolongan Tuhan dia bisa menjadi orang yang lebih baik. Kelompok masyarakat juga memberi pengaruh pada perkembangan karakter Ruth dan James. Ruth menikah dengan seorang pria kulit hitam yang membuat masyarakat memandangnya hina karena dia adalah seorang wanita kulit putih. Hal ini membuatnya menanamkan pandangan pada anak-anaknya bahwa hanya sekolah dan gereja yang penting untuk mereka. Sementara bagi James, masalah rasisme yang dialaminya dalam masyarakat telah membuat dia menanamkan dalam dirinya kebanggaan sebagai seorang pria kulit hitam ketika dia dewasa.
A. Background of the Study
A piece of literary work is the result of an author’s awareness of life. Through the medium of words and language, he can portray things in life that inspired him in writing. What we as readers, pictured there is generally inspired by other people or his experiences in the past. One’s dreams about future also can inspire a literary work. As Hudson states in his book,An Introduction to the Study of Literature,
Literature is the expression of life through the medium of language. It can be regarded as something essential since it contains real life, people, thought, and their feeling about life (1958:10).
Hudson also states that as a social being at times one needs to share his feeling, emotion, thought, and even his experiences of life. Literary form is a universal way to share one’s feeling, emotion, thought, and experiences of life. Since literary work ‘contains real life, people, thought, and their feeling about life’ (1958:10), Hudson states four kinds of desires or impulses that influence the creation of literary work. They are our desires for self-expression; our interest in people and their doings; our interest in the world of reality, where we live, and in the world of imagination, which we conjure into existence; and our love of form as form, which means that aesthetic impulse is present and we take a special satisfaction in the simple shaping of expression into forms of beauty, or we called literature as art (1958:11).
One of the oldest forms of literary expression is biographical literature.
The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 2, explains that this literary genre ‘seeks to re-create in words the life of a human being, that of the author himself or of another person, drawing upon the resources, memory and all available evidences-written, oral, pictorial” (1983:1006). Biographical literature is divided into two forms: biography which is written from personal knowledge of the subject or from research, and autobiography which is the life of a man that happens to have been written by himself and there is therefore unfinished, meaning that his future life has not included yet in the story (1983:1007-1009).
As a literary form, autobiography has been a carefully selected way for an author shares his feeling, emotion, thought, and experience in life. Instead of camouflaging his story of life by re-telling it in a form of another genre of literature called novel, he frankly telling his life to readers in a form of autobiography.
The writer is interested in this memoir since the writer finds that the main characters’ development to view life and its issues are influenced by family, religion, and society; the topic that the writer is going to discuss. James McBride presents family, religion and society as his setting in telling his mother’s story and his story as well. In a literary work, setting is one of the important elements. Setting contains the environment or the society where the characters live. Setting also contains certain event due to the development of the characters. The characteristics of character are formed or influenced by its settings. In the works of art, characters sometimes change or remain stable by the influence of society. Most public also believe that the characters that still develop are formed or influenced easily by their society, (Murphy, 1972:141). Family or primary group of life that is experienced by one has a crucial role to form his or her character development as well, (Hurlock, 1974:352).
James and his mother, Ruth McBride-Jordan, the main characters in the memoir, are aware –their own understanding– that they are different. James knows that his mother is white while he and his siblings are black or so-called mulatto. On the other hand, Ruth understands as a white woman that, being a wife of a black man is as hard as being a mother of black children. As a family, there is always confusion from the kids’ side to be different from their white mother without realizing that their mother has her own past that she never revealed to them until they grown up.
children spend most of their time, acquire many important social cognitive skills or in the process of knowing, understanding, and learning something and develop for better or worse-various attitudes, beliefs and values through their parents’ ways in teaching them, (Hurlock, 1974:352-353). In McBride’s The Color of Water, it shows that Ruth and her son, James, have different family background that influenced each of their character development. Experiences in their childhood have great effect in their adulthood.
In living their life, Ruth and James’ development cannot be separated from the way they believe in God. Ruth makes her family to ‘fear’ and believe in God in her own way that affected each of her children in different ways. Santayana in his book, Reason in Religion, says that “religion is the pattern of belief and practice through which men communicate with or hope to gain experience of that which lies behind the world of their ordinary experience” (1962:11). Ruth converts to Christianity from Judaism, as she finally finds out that “she has new life in Jesus” (McBride, 1996:235). She believes that Jesus gave her hope. Jesus is her salvation and that Jesus “pressed her forward”. Ruth’s remarkable faith has helped James in finding his own understanding of God’s love in his life and his mother’s life. Through religion, they experienced God’s love in their life.
possesses continuity through successive generation” (1965:153). Society of the times in which young Ruth lives does not change much in James’s times. The rule in society of the times they live bring different impacts to Ruth and James as developing characters. Society’s refusal on her being a black man’s wife, makes Ruth never bother with out-side house life besides her family life. As for James, being a white woman’s son makes him, and his siblings, always confuse about who they are.
The two stories, son’s and mother’s beautifully juxtaposed, tell about love, faith, family and forgiveness. The two stories are worth telling and very inspiring, and showing an eloquent exploration of what a family really means.
The writer is interested in discussing and will limits the study on about how family, religion, and society as the setting of the two stories have great influence to the main characters’ development.
B. Problem Formulation
From the background stated in the previous part, the problem formulation for the topic of this thesis may be best described in a form of question as follows: 1. How are the main characters in James McBride’s The Color of Water
described?
C. Objectives of the Study
The analysis of this study will focus on two objectives. The first is to discuss how main characters are described in the story. The second is to show the influence of family, religion, and society as the setting of the stories toward the main characters’ development.
D. Definition of Terms
There are some terms in this thesis that are necessary to be clarified in order to make the readers understand the content of the study better. Although some of the terms are general, to avoid the ambiguity and misunderstanding about the meaning of certain terms, the writer gives the literary meaning of three important concepts used in this study.
1. Character
In A Glossary of Literary Terms, Abrams stated the definition of characters as “the persons presented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by the reader as being endowed with moral and dispositional qualities that are expressed in what they say through the dialogue and by what they do through the action,” (1981:20).
2. Social Setting
Genette in Narrative Discourse says the same thing that society or social setting refers to everything related to the society’s life in a certain place, which is being described in the story. It includes the customs, tradition, belief, ideology, the way of thinking, and behaving, and perhaps the social status of the character (1980:33, 35).
3. Character Development
A. Review on Related Studies
James McBride wrote The Color of Water as his tribute to his white mother. On http//:www.teenink.com/Past/2002October/Books/TheColorof.html, Artyom M. stated that “The Color of Water is a great work of literature and addresses the most difficult problem of society”.
Growing up in the all-black housing projects of Red Hook, Brooklin, as the son of a black minister and a woman who would not admit she was white had made him fear for his mother’s safety and made her as the object of his constant embarrassment. Yet, his mother was an inspiring figure for him. In this remarkable memoir, James rewrote his mother life and his life as well. The book is a success story, a testament to one woman’s true heart, solid values, and indomitable will.
“She tells in her own words the story of her past. Around her narrative, James, the son, has written a powerful portrait of growing up, a meditation on race and identity, and a poignant, beautifully crafted hymn from a son to his mother.”
(http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/color_of_water.html)
James recreated his mother’s life. As he does, he comes face to face with racism and social segregation. Through The Color of Water, James portrays that Ruth McBride-Jordan, his mother, battled not only racism but also poverty to raise her children. Review on www.amazon.com/gp/product says that in telling her story –along with her son’s– The Color of Water deals with “racial identity with
compassion, insight, and realism”. It is, in a word, inspiring and readers will finish reading it “with unalloyed admiration for a flowed but remarkable individual. And perhaps, a little more faith in us all”.
This thesis will go along with some studies of this book to discuss how family, religion and society influenced the mother and son’s character development. The topic of this thesis has never yet discussed by other writers who chooseThe Color of Wateras his or her material to discuss. The writer hopes that this study will enrich the discussion on The Color of Water and will give contribution to the study ofThe Color of Waterin general.
B. Review of Related Theories
1. Theories of Characters and Characterization
a. Characters
Holman and Harmon in their book entitledA Handbook to Literature, state that a character may be either static or dynamic. A static character is one who changes little if not at all. Things happen to such a character without things happening within. The pattern of action reveals the character rather than showing the character changing in response to the actions. A dynamic character is one who is modified by actions and experiences, and one objectives of the work in which the character appears is to reveal the consequences of these actions (1986:83).
b. Characterization
In literary work, the author reveals the characteristic of his or her character. The process in which an author creates a character is called characterization. Authors use any or all of several basic means of characterization: a character is revealed by his action, his speech, his thought, his physical appearances and what other characters say or think of him.
According to Perrine, characterization is a representation of character in story. It is of course different from character because characterization is the way in which character represented. Therefore, character is the result, while characterization is the process. Perrine says that an author may present his character either directly or indirectly. His explanation is further discussed below: i. Direct Presentation
“The author tells the readers straight out, by giving exposition or analysis,
the author or other character(s) in the story. In this part, the readers only quote from what the author says in the story.
ii. Indirect Presentation
This is a method in which “the author shows the readers the character in the action. We infer what he or she is like from what he thinks, says, or does” (1974:68). This method is quite difficult than the previous one because firstly, there is no guidance from the author. Secondly, the readers have to be critical enough or in other words, to be an active reader, to be able to give a right judgment towards the character seen from his or her dialogue.
person reacts to various situations and events. Seventhly, the author can describe or comment on a person’s character directly. Eighthly, the author can give us direct knowledge of what a person is thinking about. In this respect, he is able to do what we cannot do in a real life. He can tell us what different people are thinking. The last, the author can describe a person’s mannerism, habits or idiosyncrasies which may also tell us something about his character.
c. Character Development
Forster in Aspects of the Novel says that character development is the changing of a character from beginning until the end of the story. A character is developed if she or he experiences a change in some aspects of disposition, personality, or outlook. He is not the same person as he was at the beginning of the story. He changes into a new character. The changing depends on the condition and experiences as it is in the story (1974:54).
Laurence Perrine in herLiterature: Structure, Sound, and Sensestates that all the fictional characters can be classified as static or developing. The developing or dynamic character undergoes a permanent change in some aspect of his or her character personality or outlook. It can be a big change or a small change; and it can be better or worse (1974:71).
2. Theories of Setting
of a narrative takes place. They mention that there are four elements make up setting,
a. the actual geographical location, its topography, scenery, and such physical arrangements as the location of the windows and door in a room,
b. the occupation and daily manner of living of the characters, c. the time or period in which the action takes place,
d. the general environment of the characters, for example, religious, mental, moral, social, and emotional condition through which the people in the narrative move (1986:465).
For Hans P. Guth, setting is the time and place of the events of the story. Often the setting helps shaping the characters and events. Village or city, north or south, poor or wealthy neighborhood, will be like and what is most important in their lives (1981:729).
Meanwhile, Langland explains that society is a concept and a construct both in fiction and life. It shows that there is an intersection of art and life, which is important. Langland says that absolute literary realism may be impossible, but art cannot help making claims to something beyond itself. It means that literature can mean something besides itself (1984:5).
Genette in Narrative Discourse says the same thing that society or social setting refers to everything related to the society’s life in a certain place, which is being described in the story. It includes the customs, tradition, belief, ideology, the way of thinking, and behaving, and perhaps the social status of the character (1980:33, 35).
From the explanations above, it can be said that society in the literary work might not be an absolute realistic mirror of the existent society in the real life, but there is a possibility that it comments on the society in our life.
3. The Relations between Character and Setting
Characters as protagonists in the literary work reveal their perspectives and values through action, speech, and thought. To act and to reflect their perspectives, the characters need a medium. The medium can be the society. That medium to which the characters respond and in which they exist defines a set of values distinct from that of the characters (Langland, 1984:9). In addition, Harvey says that through social setting we can see how an individual relates to other individuals in the society, how they group themselves, whether the individuals have classes or not, or how an individual is influenced by another (1956:56).
From the theories above, we are able to know that there is relation between characters and society. It also can be known that society can influence its character.
C. Theoretical Framework
A. Object of the Study
This thesis deals with James McBride’s book, The Color of Water. The book consists of 291 pages, with six additional pages for critics’ comments, the writer’s brief biography, and family pictures. It published by Riverhead Books in January 1996 in hardcover edition. The edition, which the writer read, is the first Riverhead trade paperback edition and published by the same publisher in February 1997.
James McBride is an award –winning writer and composer. His critically acclaimed memoir, The Color of Water, won the 1997 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Literary Excellence, was an ALA Notable Book of the Year, and spent more than two years on The New York Times bestseller list. In 2003, it was the inaugural selection of “New York City Reads Together”, as well as the 2004 selection of “One Book/One Philadelphia”. The Color of Water has sold more than 1,7 million copies in the US alone and is now required reading at numerous colleges and schools across the country. It is perennial favorite among book clubs and community-wide reading groups, and has been published in 16 languages and in more than 20 countries.
This memoir is talking about mother and son who told their own story of life yet connected to each other. Along with his mother’s story, James tells his own story of life as the eighth kid of a mix-family. He centered his story on his
confusion for being a black kid of a white birth mother who seems never concern on her kid’s identity crisis. His confusion finally leads him, as an adult, to persuade his mother to tell her story of life. The mother is a rabbi’s daughter, born in Poland and raised in the South. She fled to Harlem and married a black man. Together they founded a Baptist Church. When her first husband died, she struggled to raise her eight mix-children by herself until she met her second husband who gave her four more children but then also died and left her alone with the twelve mix-children. What a remarkable life of the mother that she did put her twelve children through college.
B. Approach of the Study
A literary approach is needed in analyzing a literary work so that a good analysis can be produced. In analyzing a literary work, every writer has his or her own way and approach. Some writers may analyze the same work of literature, but they may be different from one to another in using approaches. This study will go to the depth of the story, meaning that the writer will emphasize the analysis based on her interpretation of the work itself. Therefore, the formalistic approach, or also called the New Criticism, will be employed in analyzing all the problems stated above.
InA Handbook of Critical Approach to Literature, Guerin stated,
It means that the New Criticism assumes the autonomy of the work itself and therefore, the extrinsic elements consideration –the author’s life, his times, sociological, psychological background, or political implications are not related. This approach considers the work as a sole object and is not related to the extrinsic elements such as the author’s life and the times when the work is created.
C. Method of the Study
The method that the writer used to collect data for the thesis was library research. There were two kinds of sources, which the writer used to discuss the problems; the first was the primary source that the writer took from McBride’s
The Color of Water. Then the writer looked for the secondary sources that support the discussion of the problems. They contained of the criticism and some theories for the analysis. Library research was doing to fin some books, criticism, and theories, which were needed. It was the first step to do after deciding the topic. The writer also searched the data on the internet such as reviews and criticisms to complete the secondary data.
In order to answer all the problems mentioned in problem formulation above the writer used the data collected from the primary and secondary sources. Since the writer considers the work as a sole object, and emphasizes the analysis based on her interpretation of the work itself, then the writer employed the New Criticism approach to perform the analysis of the study.
In this chapter, the writer would answer the questions as stated in chapter I through the analysis below. The first part of the analysis would answer the question about how the main characters are described. The second part of the analysis would answer the question on the influence of the family, religion, and society as the setting of the story toward the main characters development.
A. Description of the Main Characters
Abrams in A Glossary of Literary Term stated that “characters are the persons presented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by the reader as being endowed with moral, dispositional, and emotional qualities that are expressed in what they say –the dialogue –and by what they do- the action.” Due to what Abrams says, it can be seen that the descriptions of the main characters below are based on what they or what other characters say and on what they do throughout the story.
1. Ruth McBride-Jordan
Ruth McBride Jordan, as what she tells to her son, James, through her life story, was born on April 1, 1921 in Poland with Jewish name: Ruchel Dwajra Zylska. Her family gets rid of this name when they come to America and changes it to Rachel Deborah Shilsky. Her father, Fishel Shilsky is an Orthodox rabbi and
her mother, Hudis, is an ordinary house wife, who has polio that paralyzed her left side and leaves her in overall poor health. Under the sponsorship of Ruth’s mother eldest sister, Laurie, Ruth and her family come to America in 1923 as immigrants to run from being wiped out in the Holocaust by Hitler. They arrive in America when Ruth is two years old and her older brother, Sam is four years old.
When Ruth and her family first get off the boat, they live with her grandparents, Zaideh–grandfather and Bubeh–grandmother in Manhattan, New York. As a child who comes from an Orthodox Jew family, Ruth is portrayed as a kid who does not understand about the laws of Orthodox Jews well. She knows that Orthodox Jews wear black clothes, with large black hats as her Bubeh wears and long beard. As an Orthodox Jew she eats kosher everyday, but she does not know anything about kosher
“…… you think it’s a halvah candy bar. You need to read up on it because I ain’t no expert. They got folks who write whole books about it, go find them and ask them! Or read the Bible! Shoot! Who am I? I ain’t nobody! I can’t be telling the world this! I don’t know!” (McBride, 1996:17).
“I was a runner. I liked to get out of the house and go. Run. The only thing I was allowed to do on the Sabbath was read romance magazines.” (1996:17).
As for kids in her family do not ask question makes Ruth describes herself even does not know what death is. She remembers when her Zaydeh – grandfather– dies, her family lays him out on his bed and brings the children into his bedroom to see him. Ruth thinks that her Zaydeh is asleep and that he is joking, but she witnesses her family buries him before sundown that day. She feels that her family buries him too quick. She is curios that “suppose Zaydeh isn’t dead? Suppose he’s joking and wakes up to find out he’s buried?”(1996:18). However, she can not talk about it to anyone in her family for she is not allowed to say the word “death” and that her family does not talk of death
“I didn’t know what death was. You know my family didn’t talk of death. You weren’t allowed to say the word. The old-time Jews, they’d spit on the floor when they said the word “death” in Yiddish. I don’t know if it superstitious or what, but if my father said “death” you can bet two seconds later spit would be flying out his mouth” (1996:18).
“That’s why I tell y’all to make sure I’m dead when I die. Kick me and pinch me and make sure I’m gone, because the thought of being buried alive, lying there all smushed up and smothered and surround by dead people and I’m still alive, Lord, that scares me to death” (1996:19).
Ruth’s son, James describes her physically “slender and pretty, with curly black hair, dark eyes, a large nose, and a sparkling smile” in her fifty-one and never cares about what people think of her (1996:7-8). But to her son, James, Ruth tells that as a kid she has low self-esteem. She is “tall, dark and thin and had a mustache.” She “would wear hand-me-downs and looked like a sack of potatoes” no matter what I wear” which makes her always think she has that “immigrant thing” on her (1996:200). After her grandfather’s death and her father’s contract as rabbi with local synagogue does not renew, Ruth and her family, despite her mother objections, move to South, to Suffolk, Virginia, for her father gets an offer to run a synagogue there. In Suffolk she attends school with gentiles –white folks– although it is forbidden to Jewish, but the law is the law, so she has to attend school with the white folks. Here is where she feels rejected by the kids at school. She knows that it is a problem from the moment she starts, because “the white kids hated Jews” in her school. They mock her for being a Jew. She tries to be accepted and get along with the kids at school by changing her name, but the kids never stop teasing her.
She feels that not only the kids at school who hate her, but also other people in Suffolk. She knows what it feels like when people laugh at her walking down the street, or snicker at her when they hear her speaking Yiddish, or just look at her “with hate in their eyes”. She finds out that being a Jew living in Suffolk makes her “different and liked by very few”.
In her teens, Ruth turns to be a rebellious girl. She is no longer an obedient girl. Not because she has Frances as her friend, but she becomes a rebellious girl as her way to oppose her Tateh–father. She falls in love not with a Jew and not even with a white man. She falls in love with thing that her father does not like most, a black man.
“If there was one thing Tateh didn’t like more than gentiles, it was black folks. And if there was one thing he didn’t like more that black folks in general, it was black men in particular. So it stands to reason that the first thing I fell in love with in my life was a black man. I didn’t do it on purpose. I was a rebellious little girl in my own quiet way” (1996:107).
me. I was naïve and young and before you know it I fell in love with him” (1996:111).
Falling in love for the first time has changed Ruth’s whole life. Ruth says that it is like the sun starts “shining on me for the first time, and for the first time in life I began to smile” (1996:112). She is loved and she does not care what anyone thinks about their relation. Then after a while, she finds out that her period is late. “By a week. Then another two weeks. Then it never came” (1996:112). Love has made her blind that leads her becomes a careless girl. Ruth is so in love with her boyfriend and she thinks that sex is a way to show it. By then Ruth realizes the whole thing just start to unravel on her. She is pregnant and she can not tell anyone. She considers telling Frances but she is afraid it will turn to be a trouble. It is not that she does not trust Frances but because Frances is a white girl and what Ruth does is “way,wayout as far as white folks were concerned. It was trouble”. White folks will kill her if they know she is pregnant by a black man. She is aware of her problem and she does realize her position, but she does love Frances so much that she can not bring Frances into that. She wants to protect Frances by not telling her that she is pregnant (1996:112-113).
happen to her for herself. And she is sure that “none knew except for one” (1996:114). Her mother knows that she is pregnant and that she is in trouble, so she says to Ruth “why don’t you go to New York this summer to see your grandmother?” (1996:115). Ruth depicts herself as a daughter that does not have close emotional-relation with her mother like other mothers and daughters have but, she understands that her mother implicitly tells her to get help from her mother’s family in New York. She obeys her mother and goes there and has an abortion, “a horrible, painful experience and the doctor used no anesthesia” to her (1996:134).
After the abortion, Ruth decides to put her life back on the right track so she comes back to Suffolk to finish her high school. But now Ruth realizes that she is a different girl. She thinks that she has no life in Suffolk. She is seventeen, in her last year of high school. Ruth thinks that she is now a grown-up child and the first time in her life she is starting to have opinions of her own. So, she decides that after graduation she will leave Suffolk for good. She believes that it is the right time for her to leave home forever and starts her own new life in New York, (1996:157). Later on she finds out that her father forbids her to attend her graduation because it means that she has to go into “gentile church”. Although she always opposes her father, surprisingly she finds out herself still has respect to her father. She feels that she stills Jew inside. On the graduation day, she feels guilty deep down in her heart to step into church so, she misses the ceremony and goes home, and leaves Suffolk the very next day
just couldn’t go inside that church. In my heart I was still a Jew. I had done some wrong things in my life, but I was still my parents’ child……. I walked home sobbing in my cap and gown and caught a Greyhound bus for New York the very next day” (1996:158).
As her story to her son, James that after her adventures with Rocky, Ruth is “done with the fast life”. She gets a new job at a diner serving food to customers. She even starts to go out to a date with Dennis, a black man that she meets at her aunt’s leather factory and who later on becomes her husband. She has no worry about having a new love life with a black man again. She knows that her mother’s family in New York has done with her. She is not a child anymore. She can depend on herself and she can do everything on her own. So she leaves her grandmother’s apartment one day and “never come back” to live with Dennis, a decision that she has made that she says she never regrets
“Just like that I left home. I left Bubeh’s apartment one day and never came back. See, Bubeh was old and she had diabetes and couldn’t control me, and it wasn’t like my aunts were calling to check on me or anything like that. They had their own lives and they didn’t care about me. I was grown, child. I wasn’t no baby then. “Get out there and do your own thing,” that was their attitude. So I did my own thing. I moved in with Dennis and I didn’t regret it” (1996:196).
2. James McBride
are black. James is also aware that most white folks seem to have a great fear of blacks and that makes James fear for her mother safety for having black children. White folks hate them, always “mutter things like, “Look at her with those little niggers” and black folks disgust with his mother especially and saying things like “Look at that white bitch” and a “nigger lover”” (1996:31). But his mother just ignores them which makes James even more wonders.
James is characterized as a curious kid. His curiosity that always relates to his being a kid of a white woman leads him to ask his mother one afternoon after service, why she cries in church. He asks the question to his mother after seeing her cries when she sings her favorite song “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” (1996:50). His mother answer him that she cries “because God makes me happy, I’m crying ‘cause I’m happy” but James thinks that his mother cries because “maybe God likes black people better” and this thought leads him to another question whether God is black or white
“A deep sigh. “Oh boy…God’s not black. He’s not white. He’s spirit.” “Does he like black or white people better?”
“He loves all people. He’s a spirit.” “What’s a spirit?”
“A spirit’s a spirit.”
“What color is God’s spirit?”
“It doesn’t have a color,” she said. “God is the color of water. Water doesn’t have a color.” (1996:50-51).
As a kid, James is also described as a “shy and passive and quiet” boy (1996:90). He attends a predominantly Jewish public school by his mother choices, although he wants his mother to send him to black schools like his black friends. He feels that he is stuck at the white school. Here is where he and his siblings accustom “to being the only black, or “Negro,” in school and were standout students, neat and well-mannered” (1996:89). He never feels comfortable for being the only black kid in his fifth-grade class in his school. His friend in class ever whispers “James is a nigger!” which follows “by a ripple of tittering and giggling across the room”. The teacher “shushed” them and “glared”, but “the damage had been done”. He feels angry and imagines what his siblings “would have done to call them a nigger” but he just sinks low in his chair and does nothing (1996:90). James always knows that he is a smart kid. He reads a lot. He plays music well. And he attends church. Yet he is always the victim of his friends’ joke for being black (1996:91). Skin color does a matter to James since very beginning but it becomes a serious matter to him since then that leads him to get answer from his mother
“Ma, what’s a tragic mulatto?” I asked. Anger flashed across her face like lightning and her nose, which tends to redden and swell in anger, blew up like a balloon. Where’d you hear that?” she asked.
“I read it in a book.”
“For God’s sake, you’re no tragic mul–– What book is this?” “Just a book I read.”
“Don’t read that book anymore.” She sucked her teeth. “Tragic mulatto. What a stupid thing to call somebody! Somebody called you that?”
“No”.
“Don’t ever ever use that term.” “Am I black or white?”
“You’re a human being,” she snapped. Educate yourself or you’ll be a nobody!”
“If you’re a nobody,” she said dryly, “it doesn’t matter what color you are.” (1996:92).
The answer does not make sense to James despite his mother explanation that she wants him to be somebody and accepts himself as a human being. It does hurt him as a kid to live in reality where his mother is white and seems never cares about his confusion of being a black or white kid. As James describes himself as a “shy and passive and quiet” boy, he escapes from that painful reality by playing his clarinet, “wandering away in Tchaiskovsky or John Philip Sousa, trying to improvise like jazz saxophonist James Moody”. To further escape from that painful reality, James creates an imaginary world for himself. He says that “I believed my true self was a boy who lived in the mirror” (1996:90). James will lock himself in the bathroom and spends long hours playing with him. He will turn to leave, but when he wheels around the boy is always there, waiting for him. He hates the boy in the mirror for having none of his problems
“I had an ache inside, a longing, but I didn’t know where it came from or why I had it. The boy in the mirror, he didn’t seem to have an ache. He was free. He was never hungry, he had his own bed probably, and his mother wasn’t white. I hated him. “Go away!” I’d shout. “Hurry up! Get on out!” but he’d never leave.” (1996:91).
Ruth McBride-Jordan, as the mother of James McBride, whether she realizes or not, has been affected James in building up his character as a kid. Ruth never reveals her past to her children that makes them, especially James, grows up with curiosity about her. James deals with confusion about his identity for being a black kid with a white biological mother, yet his mother seems never care about James and his siblings’ problem. James finally can persuade his mother Ruth, to tell her life’s story and to reveal her past when he becomes an adult. Ruth, the mother, reveals her past more as a favour to her son, James, although she has no desire to revisit it. His mother’s story of life brings new insights into the way James view the world as an adult. Now, as a grown man, remember his mother says “it doesn’t matter what color you are”, James feels “privileged to have come from two worlds”, Jewish and African-American. Although James does not consider himself Jewish, his view of the world now, is not merely that of a black man but that of “a black man with something of a Jewish soul” (1996:103).
B. The Influence of Family, Religion and Society as the Setting of the Stories
toward the Main Characters’ Development
Ruth and James are the two main characters in the memoir. They tell their own story of life, beautifully juxtaposed, and yet connected to each other. Each story presents the influence of family, religion and society as the setting of each story toward the characters’ development in viewing life and its issues. The writer finds that both Ruth and her son, James, change into new characters. Forster in
change in some aspects of disposition, personality, or outlook. He is not the same person as he was at the beginning of the story” (1974:54).
1. The Influence of Family
The influence of family means that father, mother, sister, brother and relatives are the models who give the biggest influence to a child in her or his early years of life. Family, as Hurlock explains in her book Personality Development, has a crucial role to form children’s character since family is the most important background during early years of childhood. This is where young children spend most of their life time, acquire many important social cognitive skills and develop for better or worse-various attitudes, beliefs and values through their parents’ way in teaching them. It can be seen through the analysis below how family has influence toward the characters’ development.
a. Ruth McBride-Jordan
A rov goes to each of the parents and sees about the dowry and arranges the marriage contract properly according to Jewish law, which meant love had nothing to do with it (McBride, 1996:15).
It is obvious that Ruth comes from a family where the parents have no love for each other and where the marriage is based on the contract. Her parents do not have the kind of warm relations that most parents have. Although Ruth’s mother is a very good wife and mother, despite her overall poor health, she witnesses her father abuses her mother verbally while her mother keeps silence and still be loyal to her father:
She kept the religious traditions of a Jewish housewife and was loyal to her husband, but Tateh had absolutely no love for her. He would call her by any name and make fun of her disability. He’d say, “I get sick to look at you,” and “Why do you bother trying to look pretty?” (McBride, 1996:41).
tell anyone about things her father does to her. She even can not tell her mother because she realizes that her mother can not do anything:
Of course I had something to run from. My father did things to me when I was a young girl that I couldn’t tell anyone about. Such as getting in bed with me at night and doing things to me sexually………… he’d get into the water with me, supposedly to teach me how to swim, and hold me real close to his body near his sexual parts and he’d have an erection. Anytime he had a chance, he’d try to get close to me or crawl into bed with me and molest me. I was afraid of Tateh and had no love for him at all. I dreaded him and was relieved anytime he left the house. But it affected me in a lot of ways, what he did to me. I had very low self- esteem as a child……… I felt low. (McBride, 1996:42-43).
Ruth conveys clearly that the things her father does to her has created her as a child who has very low self-esteem. Ruth’s family does not provide love, affection and protection which a kid needs. She does not feel safe in her own house. Her father abuses her sexually and her handicapped mother can not do anything to protect her. She can not express her thoughts and feelings or to protests her parents because she forbids doing that as Ruth’s family lives according to Jewish law. There are too many rules to follow and too many forbidden things to do lives as a Jew. And her father position as a rabbi makes the law even more real to Ruth by experiencing how very domineering her father is.
wants love but Ruth’s father does not have it to his wife. Ruth does not want to have an arranged marriage like her parents did. That is why Ruth knows that she has to leave home.
I made up my mind then that I was going to leave Suffolk for good. I was seventeen, in my last year of high school, and for the first time in my life I was starting to have opinions on my own. There was no life for me there……. That’s why I knew I was leaving home. I wasn’t going to have an arranged marriage like my parents did. I’d rather die first. (McBride, 1996:154-155).
After living home and starts her own new life in New York, Ruth changes into a very independent young woman. Although she stays with her grandmother and works for her aunt’s leather factory, she does not want any of them to get into her personal life as well as the way she stays out of their lives. Besides, Ruth thinks that she is not a child anymore and she does not want them to control her life like her father does:
I worked in my Aunt Mary’s leather factory and stayed with Bubeh, who had moved to the Bronx. It wasn’t a good situation. I wasn’t a child anymore. My mother’s sisters were done with me. Aunt Mary let me work in her factory, but she cut me no slack by any means. (McBride, 1996:169).
It can be understood then why Ruth never bothers about the way her mother’s family deal with her, because she is just so happy to be in New York and to get away from Suffolk, especially from her father. Moreover, she meets a black man at her aunt’s factory named Dennis who she falls in love with, a thing that will be impossible to do if she still stays with her parents in Suffolk.
through her, things that she does not get from her father. Being with him makes Ruth to start thinking of getting married and having her own family. Ruth is serious to face her life with Dennis this time so she decides to leave her grandmother’s apartment to move in with Dennis. Ruth never bothers to tell her grandmother and her aunts why she leaves home because she knows that they do not care about her at all. They have their own lives and Ruth does not want them to control her:
Just like that I left home. I left Bubeh’s apartment one day and never come back. See, Bubeh was old and she had diabetes and couldn’t control me, and it wasn’t like my aunts were calling to check on me or anything like that. They had their own lives and they didn’t care about me. I was grown, child. I wasn’t no baby then. “Get out there and do your own thing,” that was their attitude. So I did my own thing. I moved in with Dennis and I didn’t regret it. (McBride, 1996:196).
It is obvious that Ruth is serious in having her own life, so she imitates the way her aunts in dealing with something. She does the thing that she has to do. She stays with Dennis and does not want any of her mother’s family to interfere her decision.
verbally but he also will slap her. Ruth even discovers that her father has an affair with another woman:
The way Tateh treated her, they’d call her an “abused woman” today. Back then, they just called you “wife.” Especially if she’s a Jew who’s crippled and he’s a so-called rabbi. He can yell at her, make fun of her, curse her, slap her. he can even go out with another woman right in front of her face. (McBride, 1996:197).
Ruth witnesses her parents’ marriage comes to an end, eventually and Ruth is in the middle. Ruth knows that she can not do anything to help her parents’ marriage but Ruth sticks around Suffolk awhile longer than she plans to only for her mother’s sake. Ruth realizes that she has a mother who really needs her. But the way her father treats her mother precisely makes Ruth decides to go back to New York to continue her own life with Dennis. She does not want her life to end up like her parents’ marriage. So she again leaves home for good over her mother’s objections. Her mother says to her that she can have a good life in Suffolk, but Ruth has the same reason when she leaves home for the first time that there is no life in Suffolk for her. Her mother never brings the topic up again or asks her to stay any longer so Ruth leaves home and she pays for her decision since then because it makes her never sees her mother ever again.
She said, “You’re out of the family. Stay out. We sat shiva for you. You can’t see her.” (McBride, 1996:216).
Ruth understands that her family is very disappointed with her decision to leave home and move in with a black man. It is forbidden to Jewish according to the Jew law. Although Ruth loves her life at this point in time, it hurts Ruth to know she is out of her family and that she does not welcome in her family anymore. It hurts her even more when she hears the news that her mother has passed away before she has a chance to meet her.
Leaving home over her mother’s objections and not seeing her mother before she dies makes Ruth feels depress for months. She loses weight because she can not eat and she is near suicide because she hopes that it is her who dies and not her mother. It takes a long time for Ruth to get over the death of her mother and the guilt that she leaves her mother all alone when she leaves Suffolk. Her mother’s death affects her so much that she finds that the Jew in her dies when her mother dies:
I needed to let Mameh go, and that’s when I started to become a Christian and the Jew in me began to die. The Jew in me was dying anyway, but it truly died when my mother died. (McBride, 1996:218).
Dennis is the only family Ruth has after that. According to Beebe (1996:376) it is said that family is also defined as a social roles and status; husband, wife, son and daughter, who usually share a common residence and cooperate economically with tied of blood, marriage or adoption. Ruth marries to Dennis and she is so happy with the status of being a wife:
My husband loved me and I loved him, that’s all I needed. We were sitting in Ruth’s house having coffee at our reception and my husband (oh, I was proud to say it too––“my husband”) said to me, “We have to be strong. (McBride, 1996:237).
It seems that having Dennis, who loves her, is enough for Ruth. Ruth’s world expands because of him. Dennis teaches her about things Ruth has never heard of. Ruth lives her life completely different because of Dennis’ influence. Ruth never eats kosher –food is prepared according to Jew law– anymore. She just eats what she wants and all foods she can not eat before. She tastes pork chops and she loves them. She learns how to cook now because she can not cook when she is still in Suffolk. She even decides to accept Jesus and converts to Christianity from Judaism:
I told Dennis, “I want to accept Jesus Christ into my life and join the church.” Dennis said, “Are you sure you want to do this, Ruth? You know what this means?” I told him, “I’m sure.” I was totally sure.... (McBride, 1996: 235).
It is obvious how Dennis brings change into Ruth’s life. Ruth becomes a person who knows exactly the things she needs in her life.
Ruth now concern to take care of Dennis and kids that they have after their marriage. Ruth is so happy to be a mother of Dennis’ kids. At this point, Ruth and Dennis and their four kids live in an apartment in the Red Hook Housing Projects in Brooklyn. She never misses home in Suffolk or her Jew family after she gets married:
I loved that man. I never missed home or my family after I got married. My soul was full. (McBride, 1996:240).
Ruth and Dennis just move forward after their marriage. Dennis gets the calling to preach and wants to start a church. Ruth supports her husband when Dennis quits drinking beer and enrolls at the Shelton Bible College where he gets his divinity degree. To start a church is a hard thing to afford, but Ruth always believes that God will make another way for them and it happens when they find this cheap empty building near Red Hook. They named the church New Brown Memorial and it survives real well until Dennis comes home from work one night with a bad cold. Although Ruth expects so much that her husband will get better soon, a few days later after Ruth takes him to hospital, Dennis dies. It is a shocking thing to Ruth. She is thirty-six at that time and has been with Dennis nearly sixteen years. Dennis brings so many changes into Ruth’s life and Ruth thinks that she will never function without him:
Ruth is on her own then, struggles to bring up her family, but she is not alone. She has her kids and she holds on what Dennis says before he dies that God the Father watches over her, and sends Ruth a man named Hunter Jordan to be her second husband. Hunter Jordan is a good black man who takes over and saves Ruth with her family. He promises to help Ruth for the rest of his life if she marries him and Ruth witnesses him proves his words through their marriage. Ruth continues her life with Hunter. Ruth has eight children from Dennis, with James as the eighth kid, and she adds four more children with Hunter. She raises them all with Hunter’s help. She takes the responsibility to provide them everything they need. She sends all her children to school. She has the financial problem when Hunter dies after their fourteen years marriage, but Ruth keeps on struggling to provide her family. Ruth has been through three deaths of her beloved persons in her life, but their death never brings Ruth down. Ruth stays to be a strong woman for her family’s sake and for herself as well.
b. James McBride
only on weekends, brings bags of groceries, Entenmann’s cakes and a pocketful of dough, and a real live auto-mobile that he drives. James understands that however much his stepfather loves them; he can not live with the madness caused by twelve kids in their Queens home and leave that madness to be handled by his wife, Ruth, James’ mother. Living with eleven siblings makes James, in his early childhood, never wishes to have time being alone with his mother. However, on his first day of school, James gets a surprise when his mother takes him to the bus stop:
“C’mon,” she said, “I’ll walk you to the bus stop.” Surprise reward. Me and Mommy alone. It was the first time I remember ever being alone with my mother.
It became the high point of my day, a memory so sweet it is burned into my mind like a tattoo, Mommy walking me to the bus stop and every afternoon picking me up. (McBride, 1996:11-12).
Begins his early childhood in all-black housing projects of Red Hook makes James starts to realize something about his mother. In the eyes of James, his mother does not look like him at all. His mother is white, while he and his siblings are black. James is characterized as a curious kid and this strong character of him leads James to a search of his identity.
“Because I’m not them,” she said. “Who are you?” I asked.
“I’m your mother.”
“Then why don’t you look like Rodney’s mother, or Pete’s mother? How come you don’t look like me?”
She sighed and shrugged. She’d obviously been down this road many times. I do look like you. I’m your mother. You ask too many questions. Educate your mind. School is important. Forget Rodney and Pete. Forget their mothers. You remember school. Forget everything else. (McBride, 1996:12-13).
His mother’s answer states clearly that she does not want her kids to ever bother about their identity. She changes the topic about identity into the topic about school and she means it. James becomes aware through the way his mother reacts to his question that he is not the only kid in his family who ever asks the same question to his mother. James is sure that his older siblings ever have the same confusion with him. In fact, the question of race is the main topic between James and his siblings in his house. James learns about his mother past from his siblings because it is clear that his mother refuses to reveal details about herself or her past, and because his stepfather is mostly unavailable to deal with questions about himself or his mother:
Answering questions about her personal history did not jibe with Mommy’s view of parenting twelve curious, wild, brown-skinned children. She issued orders and her rule was law. Since she refused to divulge details about herself or her past, and because my stepfather was largely unavailable to deal with question about himself or Ma, what I learned of Mommy’s past I learned from my siblings. (McBride, 1996:21).
forced by their mother to go to predominantly Jewish public schools which make each of them grows accustomed to being the only black, or “Negro,” in their school. It affects James’ personality as a kid because he always becomes the victim of his friends’ joke for being black:
“One afternoon as the teacher dutifully read aloud from our history book’s one page on “Negro history,” someone in the back of the class whispered, “James is a nigger!” followed by a ripple of tittering and giggling across the room. I felt the blood rush to my face and sank low in my chair, seething inside, yet did nothing. I imagined what my siblings would have done. They would have gone wild. They would have found that punk and bum-rushed him. They never would’ve allowed anyone call them a nigger. But I was not them. I was shy and passive and quiet, and only later did the anger come bursting out of me, roaring out of me with such blast-furnace force that I would wonder who that person was and where it all came from.” (McBride, 1992:89-90).
James shows clearly how his mother’s decision affects his personality as a kid. James becomes a kid who has great anger deep in his heart and is ready to burst out of him anytime someone pulls the trigger, his identity of being a black kid. Unlike his siblings who show their anger by confronting someone physically when they are called nigger, James is a shy and passive and quiet kid who does nothing to show his anger.
“I had an ache inside, a longing, but I didn’t know where it came from or why I had it. The boy in the mirror, he didn’t seem to have an ache. He was free. He was never hungry, he had his own bed probably, and his mother wasn’t white. I hated him. “Go away!” I’d shout. “Hurry up! Get on out!” but he’d never leave.” (1996:91).
James realizes that the boy in the mirror will never leave unless he himself walks away from him. And it is hard thing for James to do, to leave the boy there in his own world because he has to face reality again. He will be a black kid with a white mother again. He loves his mother yet he looks nothing like her.
At his early teenage hood, James comes to the point where he does not want his mother to be seen by people because he feels embarrassed about her. It influences James so much that he grows secretive, cautious, passive, angry, and fearful. James always wants to avoid his mother being humiliated by people:
By age ten, I was coming home into my own feelings about myself and my own impending manhood, and going out with Mommy, which had been a privilege and an honor at age five, had become a dreaded event. I reached a point where I was ashamed of her and didn’t want the world to see my white mother. I grew secretive, cautious, passive, angry, and fearful, always afraid that the baddest cat on the block would call her a “honky,” in which case I’d have to respond and get my ass kicked. (McBride, 1996:100-101).
James clearly states that the only way he avoids his mother being humiliated is by not be seen with her. He is ashamed of his mother, yet he is afraid that his mother will be humiliated by people in their society.
My stepfather, a potential source of information about her background, was not helpful. “Oh, your mama, you mind her,” he grunted when I asked him. He loved her. He seemed to have no problem with her being white, which I found odd, since she was clearly so different from him. (McBride, 1996:100).
James does notice that his stepfather seems does not have any problem for having a white wife. Just like his mother, James’ stepfather only interested in talking his school grades and church. His parents’ attitude to his confusion makes him becomes a rebellious kid. This behavior becomes worse when his stepfather dies and he is only fourteen. James sees his mother falls into a deep grieve after the death of his stepfather and it affects James in handling his grief. He does not go to school and he quits church. James begins to be an addict as his way to forget any pain:
Reefer and wine helped me to forget any pain, and as the pain and guilt increased, my problems with drugs worsened. (McBride, 1996:142). James conveys clearly that drugs become his way to handle his grief after the loss of his stepfather. He knows that his mother can not stop him or to punish him to become an addict because she grieves the loss of her husband as well. Besides, James feels he is too old and too strong, and too far gone to be controlled by his mother this time. James’ older brothers, who come home from college and admonish him, make no difference in James problems with drugs.
thinks that he needs to start his life all over again in a new place. He attends the all-black public Pierre S. Du Pont High School in Delaware and he likes it fine. And by the time he begins his senior year in high school, James knows that he wants to go to college like his older siblings do and be a musician. He applies to Oberlin College in Ohio and he is accepted. James tells his mother about the news which makes her completely happy for it is another success for her to send her children to college:
I was the eighth straight child she sent to college. The seven before me all graduated and most went on for higher degree. (McBride, 1996:189). James feels that he abandons his mother when he finally leaves to go to Oberlin College in Ohio. It is at the first place for James’ sake that his mother decides to move to Delaware and now that James is about to leave. Yet his mother really wants him to go. She does not want James to stay in Delaware and doing nothing:
“If you stay here, you’ll fool around,” she’d say. “Go away and learn to live on your own.” (McBride, 1996:190).
James now has a new insight about his mother that since he was a little kid, she always wants him and his siblings to go and leave home so that they can have their own life like his mother does when she is still a young girl.
past and after hearing his mother’ past, James hopes never brings the subject up to talk about:
As she revealed the facts of her life I felt helpless, like I was watching her die and be reborn again (yet, there was a cleansing element, too), because after years of hiding, she opened up and began to talk about the past, and as she did so, I was the one who wanted to run for cover. (McBride, 1996:269).
James states his feeling clearly that he is shock to hear his mother’ past and things
she has been through in her life. His mother has made decision to leave her family
in order to run away from her father, James’ grandfather, who abuses her. His
mother has to face the dissipation of her own Jewish family and to live the guilt
over abandoning her mother, James’ grandmother, and that his mother has to face
the sudden and tragic death of her first husband, James’ birth father, whom she
adores. James reaches a point where he understands why his mother never wants
to reveal her past to her children. His mother opens the door for James and his
siblings when she lets her Jewish side gone and closes the door for herself.
2. The Influence of Religion
Ruth and James show how religion influenced each of them in their
development through their own story of life. In dealing with her problems, Ruth
reaches a point in her life where she decides to converts to Christianity from
Judaism. For James, his faith in God helps him to put his life back on the right
