Color of Water
After reading the memoir, The Color of Water, by James McBride I can conclude that he has been successful at overcoming his five inner enemies. Throughout the story he has grown emotionally, he has made creative connections with journalism, writing, music, and the people around him. He has learned to empathize with his mother and her past, he also did a good job at managing his ego, while overcoming alienation and boredom. In my life many people who I love dearly have been taken away from me and I hated it deeply, but I have learned to gather my emotions together and move on, though I still think about them always, and probably always will. In this story McBride was faced with many emotional roller coasters in his life, but he has learned to cope with them. He had his biological father taken away from him very early in his life, and had his caring stepfather taken away from him. After the loss of his stepfather his life went straight downhill; skipping school, doing drugs, drinking, and committing petty crimes. Eventual he learned that he had to gather his emotions and grow on them. This is what made him stronger in life, by growing on these emotions for his dead fathers and finding faith in Jesus.
It wasn't until he went back home and realized that he wasn't smarter then anyone that got his ego to come crashing down on him, now he cares about his mom and wants to help her, and in the long run asks her about her child and to co-write a memoir with him describing both of their lives. Throughout the time McBride was growing up he had a very tough time growing up with some bad inner enemies, but with some good advice from the Chicken man, faith in Jesus, music, a passion for writing and being able to relate to his mothers pass, he has learned to conquer those five inner enemies. McBride didn't seem to have much of an ego until he got to the corner in Louisville, until then he just thought of himself. She grew up a Jewish girl in a mostly gentile city, where she was mistreated. He seen his mom breaking down, but he didn't care he just kept getting high, he didn't care about anyone except for himself and this is where is ego started to show. He has took the rough life he and his mother have both lived and combined it with his literary skills and turned it into a New York Times best seller for over two years. After getting his mother to tell him about her childhood for this memoir, McBride has realized that he can relate and feel for what she has gone through. McBride also ran from his problems, except he didn't run to different states, he ran to drugs and alcohol, and it just kept getting worse until he stopped drinking and smoking weed. This got him into a good crowd where he wasn't alienated or bored. uld consider to be a Renaissance man, he composes music and literature, and he has been successful at writing in many of the top magazines and a professional jazz player on the saxophone. McBride can relate to all this, his mother had 12 children when he was a teenager, with 8 children in college, so she didn't have much money at all so McBride wore hand me downs and never had money to do anything. Once his stepfather left him he had no one, with his mom being so busy with all the other kids and work. He was sent to Jackie's in Louisville where he hung out with the guys on the corner, where he thought he knew all of life's answers and can get through it with a gun. From what I can gather most jazz is linked with the blues, and well McBride has had many blues in his life and he makes the connection from his own blues to his music in a very creative way. She ran away from her problems only to run into more, whether north or south, she had problems with the people and how they judged her.
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Acceptance Essays
