Essay: The Color Of Water By James Mcbride

Summer Reading Essay: The Color of Water

James McBride turned out to be a very good man although his outside influences growing up would encourage the opposite. Growing up with more than one father figure in his life and many older brothers and sisters sent his life spiraling out of control but eventually came to a calm and quiet hault. A father is someone who is supposed to teach his son to be a man; not every man has the same beliefs or teaching, so having many different views in and out James’ life was probably hard to balance. The many men that took on the role of his father as he went through life had major effects on him and made him who he is today.

James McBride had accumulated a total number of two fathers in his life. Ruth, James’ mother, was widowed not only once but twice. Her first husband was Andrew Dennis McBride, and James’ biological father. Ruth and Dennis met at her aunt’s leather factory and they eventually had eight children together. Dennis fathered all of his children until he died at a young age from lung cancer. Ruth mourned his death to an extreme extent. Ruth later on married James’ step-father, Hunter Jordan. Ruth

The absence of his biological father added to the yearn to know his roots, where he came from and who he was, as he became older. James struggled with identity for a great deal of his life after his stepfather, who seemed to be the emotional stability for the family, died. James was supposed to take care of the family after his stepfather died, but instead he dropped out of school, ran the streets, and picked up a bad habit of his stepfather’s- drinking. You would think that because James had good influences in his life that he would immediately take on that role after being taught, but James fell apart and had to learn to become a man on his own. Eventually, James found himself and began to transform into the man his fathers had taught him to