Saturday 23 February 2013

In The Color of Water, what two hobbies did Ruth take up when James was fourteen?

When James was
fourteen, Ruth picked up two hobbies: playing the piano and riding a bicycle. The latter,
however, is something James and his siblings frowned upon. Hunter, Jamess stepfather, had picked
the blue bicycle from the streets of Brooklyn and brought it home with him. After his death,
Ruth fondly rode it even though it was hideous and old fashioned in design. The features of the
bicycle only brought more attention to Ruth in the neighborhood where she was already
conspicuous for being the only white woman. She seemed oblivious to the amount of danger she
exposed herself to just by riding that bicycle. James was embarrassed and disapproved but kept
his sentiments to himself, unlike his sister Dotty who explicitly told her that she wished she
would stop riding it. Though James did not understand it back then, it was Ruths way of grieving
as he came to comprehend much later. She had been through a series of tragedies, the latest
being Hunters death.

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