The book titled The Color of Water by James McBride is an autobiographical affair which describes the life and happenings of the author’s mother, Ruth. The book is also a tribute to Ruth’s life and all that she goes through in the course of life. Ruth is presented as a strong woman with great ambition and strength. The book is not only representative of her journey and struggles; it is also her development as a person, a Christian, and a woman during the course of her life. She is the central figure in the novel and her dreams and aspirations for her life and children are depicted through her actions. (McBride). In order to analyze her character and understand the journey she takes, Psychoanalytic literary criticism can be applied to her character to shed light on its development and growth and the closure she gets at the ends.
The most important aspect of the book as well as Ruth’s life story is the political and social strife of the time which relates to the Civil Rights Movement and the time of great discrimination against the African American race in the country. Moreover, her journey is also descriptive of her religious and spiritual experiences, her conversion to faith and her abandonment of the family. Her experiences also shape the way she takes her herself and her 12 children with her along the course of life and choosing the hardest options in order to provide a better life for them. She fought racial segregation which made her liable to questions raised by the family and the society, and she bore them patiently because of her strong character and resilience.
Shaping her early life, Ruth is a Polish woman whose family migrated to the States when she was an infant. At the age of two her family came to settle in the States while her father tried to look for a job as a Rabbi in the country. Ruth and her family had come to the country at a time when there was adequate discrimination and hatred against the Jews and the blacks of the country. The first set of discrimination they faced was when her father could not become a Rabbi in the country and the family had to move to Suffolk, Virginia in order to start up a general store so the family could earn a livelihood. (McBride 24).
The store that the family had opened was in the black neighborhood of the area which attracted a lot of African American customers. However, Ruth’s father was prejudiced against the African American race, and he used to overcharge the blacks coming o the store in order to express his hatred towards them. Watching her father behave in this manner against the black race developed a soft corner in Ruth’s heart because she knew that the black race was not responsible for anything that was happening to them, and it was simply Nature’s course which makes people white or black, Christian or Jewish, and there is nothing that can be done about it. Her father’s attitude did not get into her blood and veins, and she was the opposite of his temperament; loved the African American race and even married black men and raised black children.
Psychoanalytically, this can be recorded as the influence of the subconscious on the mind of an individual. Ruth was aware of the fact that the prejudice was unnecessary, and she disliked her father for doing so. (Holland). Hence, she felt guilty when he would overcharge the black citizens not because he needed the money but only because he disliked them for their color.
In an attempt to show her hatred for her father’s actions, Ruth subconsciously developed a liking for black men. In fact, her first boyfriend Peter whom she met in Suffolk was the first love of her life. He was black and in spite of her family’s hatred and aggression toward the black race, she went ahead and met him. It was that time in American history when it was unperceivable for a white woman to be in any kind of relationship with a black man.
However, Ruth did the impossible, and she used to meet Peter secretly. So much so that she got pregnant with his baby while she was meeting him. These lead to her mind is covertly rebelling against the family she was born and raised in. However when she got pregnant, she knew she could not have the baby . Otherwise, the family would deal with her strictly. Moreover, she knew it would cause a lot of problems and hurdles in her way, and she needed to deal with them in secrecy. Dreading the family’s response and the awaiting strictness, she decided to leave Suffolk and move to New York. (McBride 55).
However, it was not just the baby and the affair that made Ruth escape from town. Another horrible and tragic event lurked in her mind which she wanted to leave behind as soon as she could. When she was a young girl, Ruth was sexually abused and molested by her own father. Her father, whom she called Tateh, was a man who used his daughter physically and made her work at the family’s store for long hours. (McBride 60).He was harsh and cruel towards her and even though she bore this when she was a small girl, she did not wish to pursue the same road and rule when she grew up to be a woman.
According to Freud, childhood experiences are an important part of one’s personality development and growth as an individual. (Delahoyde). Ruth experienced molestation from her father, Fishel Shilsky, which made her get settled in an abusive relationship. She was too young to realize the seriousness and intensity of the situation at the time but all it did for her as a grown up was develop a hatred for her father and her family. (McBride 77). Not being able to voice out one’s experiences of being abused is also tormenting and it casts a very changing effect on one’s personality. Perhaps this is one reason why Ruth wanted to get away from her family and never see them again. Her father, being a Rabbi, did not respect his religious teachings and used his daughter for sexual means which violated all terms of the relationship she had with her father and it created an unbridgeable gap in her mind. So much so that Ruth promised her sister that she would come back to the family after she would settle in New York, but she never returned. (McBride 87).Perhaps this was the repressed experience in her mind which she wanted to escape because she remembered her father being ‘as hard as a rock.’ It also led to an overall lowered self-esteem and an empty father-daughter relationship which she had always yearned for.
Her childhood experiences also made her aware of the fact that her mother whom she
called Mameh was never loved by her father and she never asked for that love either. Her mother was a victim of stigmatization and bias on the part of her family. This was because of her polio which she had incurred as a child, and now her own well-off family refused to have any to do with her because of her handicap. The same love she wished from her husband was also absent. Although Ruth’s mother was a mild and sweet woman, there was little she could do for Ruth or Ruth for her.
Therefore, her childhood experiences with family had always been bitter and full of remorse. Living in Orthodox Judaism and surviving with all that it brought with it, Ruth became afflicted with suffocation and hatred of being closed up in that environment. Moreover, Ruth was very close to her grandparents, who had also migrated to the States with them. However, their stay with her was short-lived, and soon they passed away. But according to the Jewish traditions, the family was not supposed to mention the death and remorse. (McBride 101). This left a deep and everlasting impact on Ruth’s personality as she later tried to keep her own family away from tragedy and death as much as she could.
As Freud mentions the three stages of personality development in the face of id, ego and superego, Ruth is shown to demonstrate all these in the course of her life. For example, the id comes into play when she bicycles around the black neighborhood where her husband has passed away. It is a reflection of her basic most instincts, as the id represents one’s needs and desires. The id is the basic drive and not only does it relate to needs, but it is also the representation of what makes one satisfied at their utmost time of turmoil and stress. She bicycles like a child in the neighborhood because she wants to keep the child in herself alive and moreover it is a reflection of who she really is and not whom she suppresses inside of herself all the time. James remembers her as a buoyant character that is always in the best of spirits and aimed at doing what is right and what she deems right.
The ego makes up the rational part in a person, and it influences the decisions and actions taken by a person which are done in a logical tone of mind.
Ruth leaves Suffolk in order to escape not only what psychologically tormented her i.e. her family and their undue strictness but also that she was pregnant with a black man’s child, and she knew it would be a source of great trouble is her family found out. (McBride 90). Moreover, she wanted a new chance at life, and so she left the family and shifted away. This opened a new aspect of life to her, and she knew she would be free to do what she wanted once she was away from the stronghold of the family.
She also needed support and love like a normal person hence she persevered and found the love of her life in Dennis, whom she met in Harlem. She knew she could not survive on her own, and she needed a man with her. She was a minority in the country, and she had no such clear chances of being successful independently. Thus, she married Dennis and began her new life.
The other major change she made in her life was when she converted to Christianity. James has described his mother as an adventurous and risk-taking woman who likes to do the extraordinary in life. She undertakes the task of converting her religion and becoming a Christian. Her decision is influenced by certain factors. First, it is her husband, who is a Christian and she wants to live equally and wholly as him. (McBride 121).If a family follows one faith, then it is easier to raise children with the same values as well. Secondly, she wanted to get away from the Orthodox Judaism that followed her from childhood to adulthood and had only given her pain and misery. She was a minority in the country and at the time, there was no telling when the Americans would turn against the Jews as well and begin to lynch or harm them as well. Hence taking a logical decision, she converted for the betterment of herself and her forthcoming family and began to live in the country as a devout Christian.
The third part of personality development according to Psychoanalysis is the superego. This is the moral and ethical part of a person’s personality, and it governs their decision which is invoked and influenced by their spirituality and also has a lot to do with their subconscious and childhood experiences. (Purdue Owl). Ruth has converted to Christianity not only for survival but also because she was tired of her father’s hypocrisy in religion. She had been physically and sexually abused as a young child, and she could not let that get out of her mind. (McBride 140). She began to think that Judaism was not the religion for her because her father preached goodwill and righteousness but forgot to practice it on his own child.
Thus, she wished to convert so she could no longer be associated with her father any longer and it would alleviate her from the pain and mental torture. Moreover, when she was a young girl, she had been bullied at school for her religious beliefs and studying in a Protestant School, she had lacked the kind of childhood that children yearn for; free from hate and full of love and good memories. Thus, her superego was also responsible for making her do something so huge in life that she went ahead and opened a church for the black people of Harlem. The church was an offering of peace she had made with her past and for the future generations of devout Christians; she had made a recluse that would provide relief from their worries and anxieties. Ruth was utterly displeased with her father in her early life, and she compared his failure of becoming a Rabbi with her husband Dennis’s success in opening a church and becoming a Revered of that same church. She called her husband ‘a man of vision’ whereas she had abandoned her father and her family for good. (McBride 67).
Ruth’s love for the black American race was also out of her good heart and the realization she had in her heart regarding the prejudice they suffered for no reason. She married a black man because she believed that racial differences were unnecessary and unfair and that loving a person of a different color was never a crime. She was the person who believed that a person’s moral beliefs were higher in rank than one’s racial biases and hate. Her superego made her realize how her father had hated the blacks in their neighborhood in Suffolk, and this is something he shouldn’t have done. This is because being a minority in a country himself he should have understood the plight of the people and stood with them instead of denigrating them further. He had misunderstood the meaning of religion, equality and love for all and Ruth turned to Christianity in order to prove that she stood equally with the other minority of the country.
Also, she stood with the black race because they understood her. Her boyfriend and her husband had accepted her as a Jew, and they had not hated her because of her religion or background. Also, being white was not a problem for them, and she was accepted by them as one of their own. Ruth had had eight children from Dennis and soon before James was born, Dennis passed away. As Ruth had no moral and financial support and her family turned her down when she asked for help, she remarried another black man Hunter Jordan with whom she had four children. Ruth also learned from her childhood and previous life that children need to be provided the best and given the best in life. For this reason, she sent them to the best schools and colleges and managed to raise all 12 of her children as capable and responsible individuals. Her philosophies on religion, love, race and spirituality influenced her children as much as they were instilled inside of her.
Ruth also gathered her bitter childhood experiences and did not want them to be reflected in her children and their lives hence she used to spend a lot of time with her family and devoted her attention to them. (McBride 130). She visited her children and loved her grandchildren and always wished to give them the best she could. Ruth’s daughter Helen ran away from home, discontinuing her education which she believed was the whitest thing one could do. She became isolated from the family and left to live in a bad neighborhood. However unlike the treatment Ruth had received from her own family, she was always willing to talk to her daughter and convince her to come home to her. She knew the financial and emotional troubles which accompany abandonment, and she did not wish the same to happen to her child as well. Ruth’s father had told her never to return home but Ruth never told her daughter to leave, and she had kept her doors open to her.
Ruth’s character has a resilience and strength that has been shaped by her various childhood experiences. Her parents being Orthodox Jews had a strong work ethic, and they always worked with extreme discipline and care. Although as a young girl, Ruth had disliked working in the family store, growing up she employed the hard work and discipline in herself. When her first husband died, she worked odd jobs where many of them were difficult for her and she was underpaid. (McBride 99).But she managed to work long, unsociable hours for the sake of her children and instilled the same discipline and hard work in them. She gave a lot of importance to education and literacy because it seemed to be the only way people could rid themselves of biases and hatred. (Purdue Owl). An enthusiastic woman devoted to family, religion and equality amongst society, Ruth is an exemplary mother and woman, and James appreciates all the efforts she makes in her life in the novel.
Work Cited
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McBride, James. The Color of Water. 1995. Web. 26 Mar 2016.
<http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29209.The_Color_of_Water>.
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