Directions:
After reading chapters 4 and 5 of The Color of Water by James McBride, answer EIGHT of the following discussion questions in the comments section of the blog. Be sure to complete this by midnight WEDNESDAY.:
Chapter 4: Black Power
1. Characterize Ruth’s parenting style. How does that style influence the relationship between McBride and his siblings?
2. McBride writes, “Yet Mommy refused to acknowledge her whiteness” (23). In what ways does she register this refusal?
3. McBride describes the effect black power has on his neighborhood, and he suggests his appreciation for aspects of it, but he has fears for his mother in relation to this movement. Why is he afraid for his mother?
4. Ruth’s rules for her children include a combination of privacy, good grades, and distrust of others. Why would she suggest such a policy?
5. McBride writes, “Mommy’s house was an entire world that she created” (27). Describe that world and the manner in which it functions.
6. McBride says that Ruth’s childhood experiences offered “the best and worst of the immigrant mentality” as a model (29). What does he mean, and how does this influence Ruth’s philosophy of life and, therefore, that of her children?
7. McBride writes, “Yet conflict was a part of our lives, written into our very faces, hands, and arms, and to see how contradiction lives and survived in its essence, we had to look no further than our own mother” (29). How is conflict written into the McBride children’s very bodies? How did contradiction live and survive in his mother?
8. How doe Ruth respond to insults?
9. What role does religion/spirituality play in Ruth’s life?
Chapter 5: The Old Testament
10. How would you characterize the life Ruth has with her family in Suffolk?
11. How does her first husband change her life?
12. Why is this chapter called “The Old Testament”?
why aam i here -.-
ReplyDeleteAshlyn Jaglall
ReplyDeleteClass- 192 pd-6
9. She makes sure that her kids go the church every Sunday. She wants to teach her kids about god.
12. In this chapter "The Old Testament", she brings us back to when she was a child and how she lived.
11. The reason why Ruth's first husband changed her life is, because she married a black man and her parents disowned her.
4. The reason why she wants her kids to get good grades is, because she wants her kids to grow up to be a great person in life.
1. Her parenting style’s are very strict. She made sure that her kids are not getting in to trouble.
2. She does not care of what everyone thinks of her.
8. She does not care what people are saying about her. She is just blocking out everything they are saying about her.
3. The reason why he is afraid of his mother is, because if he does anything wrong he will get in trouble
Queens Collegiate Cheki Woodberry
ReplyDelete192/ 2nd period English
1.Ruth's parenting still were serious and strict. She did not except anything less of her children than they should expect from themselves.By having this kind of parenting style, James and his siblings were inspired to never break these rules because it was like breaking the law in Ruth's house.
2. Ruth fails to acknowledge her whites because everytime he ask her why she doesn't look like him, she says that she isn't white, she is just light skinned.She acts like she isn't the only white person married to a black man in a black neighborhood with 12 black children.
3.McBride is afraid for his mother because it is a Black Power movement and his mother was not black.
10. I would classify Ruth and her family as determined. I say this because Ruth didn't really care about what other's thought about her race. She continued to take care of her children and at the end of the day, that should be her main priority and didn't let the racist comments bring her down. She stood strong for her children.
8. Ruth responds to the insults by ignoring them. Whenever James and his siblings continued to question her skin color, she tried her best to change the subject. When others look at her the wrong way because she was the only white woman in a black neighborhood, she kept her head high and stood tall and didn't fall apart in front of her children.
9. Religion plays an important role in Ruth's life that is why she tries to keep her children in church and Sunday school. When one of the siblings dropped out of Sunday school, she tried everything she possibly could do to get him back in.
6. Ruth's first husband changed her life because he was a hard working man who took care of his loving wife. Her took care of his children and stood by her through thick and thin before he passed away.
12. This chapter's title is "Old Testment" because it goes back to the old Ruth. It tells about Ruth and her coming of age before she became the grown women she was.