The Color Of Water-Protagonist Essay, Research Paper

The Protagonist of a novel is the main character. The Protagonist of, The Color of Water, is James Mc Bride, also the author. He tells about his life story and about how he had to deal with a hard lifestyle growing up. He also tells the story from his mother, who also talks in the book. This novel is like a diary because James, in every chapter, writes about a different account in his life, just as one would write in their diary about what happened in a day. James describes his life in great detail and also through his character when his mom is talking.

James develops greatly over the course of the novel. His troubles start as a child. He experiences many negative things toward him. From the start, he has no father and only his mom takes care of him and the family. On any given day, people say racist comments to him and his mother because of the different colors of their skin. The mother is white and James is black. In elementary and high school, all of the kids make fun of him because of his dirty clothes and because he is a black Jewish kid going to a white Jewish school.

As James gets older and moves along in his life, he tells himself what he wants in life and how do it. He decides to ignore all of the remarks said to him and the way he is treated. In high school he has no social life because he dedicates all of his time to playing musical instruments and figures no one will want to be his friend anyway. James works really hard during high school and gets a full scholarship to college where he majors in music. This is a big accomplishment for him. Again in college he dedicates all of his time to his studies, music, and takes and interest in journalism. He graduates from college and enters the real world.

James uses his skills in journalism to write for the local newspaper. In the course of his life he writes for six different newspapers. He was so successful as a writer he was never in search of a job because everyone wanted to hire him. He retired from journalism and wanted to focus more on his music. He realized music was not going to make him a living so he went back to writing for the newspaper. His mother was so proud of him. From then on, he was successful in anything he did.

Throughout a persons life there are many roads to take, some are good and some are bad. Fortunately, James took the hard ones in the beginning but then switched to the good ones when he realized what he could do with his life. James worked incredibly hard to get where he is today. He faced so many obstacles in his life but overcame them because he had his mind set on what he wanted to do. Any person can do what James did. As long as you keep your confidence level high, a person can achieve anything.