At the very beginning of the book “The Color of Water”, one of the narrators Ruth told us she was “dead”. Indeed, Ruth was dead and completely missing her past since she determined to change her identity to relive her life. Why she wanted to do that? I thought the most important reason came from her family in Suffork. She was upset to her boring life and wanted to get rid of it —she got used to walk around store of her family all day; she was forbidden to pursue her true love by her father; she did not want to live in a family which was filled with so-called formalities but had no love. Eventually, she chose to leave her hometown and change her identity to pursue what she really wanted, to be self-fulfilling and then to relive her life. There are three important ways Ruth changed her life, all of which affected her identity; namely changing her name, religion, and environment. As a result, James, one of Ruth’s children and the author of the book, was deeply influenced by the process of the changing identity of his mother.
Firstly, I wanted to explain the effect of changing the name. Usually, name was the first thing jumped into people’s mind when they were asked what identity is. The reason was a person’s name was a symbol and the most distinctive characteristic of an independent individual. Name explains the issue about who you are. Therefore, changing name was the most obvious measure to change one’s identity. Ruth’s name was Rachel Deborah Shilsky after her family moved to America. “Ruth got rid of that name when she was nineteen and never used it again after she left Virginia in 1941” (McBride 2).
The Essay on Changes In The Australian Family
Through interpreting the information in the table below, construct an argument that accounts for the trends in marriage and fertility rates. Give alternative explanations for changes in family structure. Support your argument with information from the table and other evidence form you course. Selected Family Trends in Australia Over Three Decades Early 1970sLate 1990sRate of cohabitation prior to ...
Leaving Virginia was Ruth’s first step to start her new life. She changed the name meant that she said goodbye to her previous life and previous identity. She wanted to get rid of everything related to the past thoroughly.
Secondly, changing religion also had a vital partial effect on changing identity by shaping one’s values and outlook on world and life. Different religion could teach people the different belief which was highly correlated with one’s value and outlook on world and life, like discipline, honor, a sense of pride and a sense of right and wrong. Karl Marx even called religion “the opiate of the people”.
Ruth was born in an Orthodox Jewish family, so there were many religious limitation and rules in her family. Ruth was even restricted in what she could eat and how she ate. “The way we did it, you had different table settings for every meal, different tablecloths, different dishes, forks, spoons, knives, everything. And you couldn’t mix your meals…No pork, either—no pork chops with potato salad, no bacon and eggs, forget all that”(McBride 17).
Under this condition, Ruth was restricted physically and mentally either by her father or by religion. She had no hope to this world and there was no passion and creativity in her life because her belief was permeated by her religion. Her life would be foreordained to be trite but Ruth definitely was unsatisfied with it. It turned out that religion was a driving force for Ruth to change her identity. In 1942, Ruth determined to accept Jesus Christ into her life and join the church. She ruled out the Jew formalities and achieved the freedom from the Christian. “Instead of eating kosher, using different table settings for every meal and eating all meat or all dairy dishes, I just ate what I wanted, I tasted pork chops and loved them” (McBride 234).
This was in sharp contrast to her past life in the Jewish family. Ruth would not be limited by the principles of Jew and she was happy to accept Jesus. She got freedom and be self-fulfilling from her new religion whose belief was supporting Ruth to pursue what she wanted and giving her courage to face the hard life strongly. This made her more confident and passive to her life.
The Term Paper on Changing Families
Changing Families in Society James S. Hunter III OMM 612 Dr. David Jung April 21, 2013 By watching television one would think that the family is made up of one man, one woman, children and possibly pets. The family has changed over the years from before today we have a much more unique family life than twenty five or fifty years ago. Society has become more acceptable to change and have accepted ...
The last but no least, I think the effect of different environment plays the most important role in changing Ruth’s identity. I thought the environment contributed to shaping one’s qualities which was an indispensable part of identity. Although natural environment was important, social environment was more crucial in shaping Ruth’s qualities. The most representative and vital social environment which helped Ruth to reshape her qualities was family. Researches have been proved that “parental attitudes have the important impact on formation and development in children’s qualities. If the parental attitude was always refused or regardless, the qualities of children would be resistant and impassive” (Baldwin, 186).
Baldwin’s point was well proved on Ruth’s case. I remembered a scene of the book, when Ruth decided to leave Suffork, her father rudely enforced her to stay and then they argued. He even warned Ruth not to come back again if she decided to leave Suffork. Her mum was gentle and meek but she was always silent to any decision made by her husband. Ruth’s father and mother’s attitudes to her made her became “a rebellious little girl in my own quiet way” (McBride 107).
Except her parents’ attitudes, her family had no true love, especially her parents. The reason her father married her mother was to get a ticket to America rather than love. Ruth was deeply affected by this relationship between with her parents.
Comparing with Ruth’s Jew family, her family which consisted of her husband and their children had more positive impacts on changing Ruth’s quantities. Although they were insulted by many people for their different race and their living condition was worse than her life in Surffork, Ruth was happy and generated the strong and active quantity to face these indignities. From being depressed to active, Ruth’s change came from a family filled with love. They were intimate and cared about each other rather than kept secrets like her relatives in New York. They could say the words like “I love you” which were forbidden in her previous family.
Ruth’s identity was totally changed based on the effects of changing name, religion and environment. I viewed her changing identity as the process of struggling with her fate and it had a significant impact on her children, especially on James. She taught James that he should insist on his dream beyond persistence on race, religion even family. Her dream was changing identity to relive life and she achieved it. Her spirit affected her children and contributed them to realizing their dream. This book had another name in its Chinese vision, “My Special Mother”. Ruth was special because she was a white woman in the black community. She was special since she was a mother of 12 children who were the best in their own field. She was special, because she always did not bend to her past.
The Research paper on Changing Behaviors by Changing the Classroom Environment
Many teachers face disruptive behavior in their classrooms. They are left with the question; how can they identify and change the problem areas in the classroom environment in order to change the behavior? By collecting data on students’ engagement during instruction, disruptive behavior, and teacher observations, teachers can identify which physical aspects of their classrooms need to be ...
