79 pages • 2-hour read
The Color of Water
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Symbols & Motifs
A Bird Who Flies
As Ruth considers leaving her family when Mameh and Dee-Dee need her most, Mameh reflects on the ritualized killing of a chicken. She tells her daughter, “That chicken is just showing God we’re thankful for living. It’s just a chicken. It’s not a bird who flies. A bird who flies is special. You would never trap a bird who flies” (218). The description explains the difference between mother and daughter: Mameh’s health and inability to speak English make her “just a chicken”—unable to fly and therefore considered suited for sacrifice, while Ruth is “a bird who flies […] special,” because she already proved herself capable of living on her own so she has the power to get away. Ruth interprets the metaphor as Mameh’s tacit permission for her to leave. Ruth clings to Mameh’s symbolism as a coping mechanism for her guilt over leaving Mameh.
Ruth’s Bicycle
When James is a small child, Ruth’s compulsive desire to be on the move manifests as she endlessly rides a rickety old bicycle around Queens. The behavior “typified her whole existence to [James]. Her oddness, her complete nonawareness of what the world thought of her, a nonchalance in the face of what I perceived to be imminent danger from blacks and whites” (7). Ruth’s seemingly blithe disregard for her own safety as she weaves through the neighborhood on a bicycle that looks like it could fall apart at any moment represents her broader attitude toward life. While James lives in constant fear that a Black Panther or a racist white person will kill his mother, Ruth is too busy securing education and religion for her children to worry about her own safety. Her need to stay in constant motion seems symbolic—if she doesn’t go fast enough, the traumas of her past may catch up with her.
The Boy in the Mirror
In an effort to better understand his racial and cultural identity, young James spends hours staring at himself in the mirror. Over time, however, he gives his reflection a separate persona—a boy who never aches and whose mother is Black. This fantasy, however, slowly curdles into envy and self-hate. Thus, this symbol represents how James’s confused racial identity, exacerbated by cultural factors and his mother’s refusal to acknowledge race, can lead to self-loathing. James invests his reflection with all his dreams of having a straightforward cultural heritage, causing his identity to fracture. This uneasy duality persists late into adulthood, and James only manages to reconcile it by spending over 10 years writing and researching The Color of Water.
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