Ppt

Does the environment that the protagonist lives in support his/her individuality or is he/she encouraged to conform to the society?

Throughout the book, James McBride is unsure of his own place in society, as he doesn't quite fit into either the white, or black communities. Early on in his life, he resents his mom's difference in skin tone, partly from his feeling of separation in respect to other black kids his age. Through the civil rights movement in the 1960's, although he was impressed by the demonstrations, he constantly ”feared black power very deeply for the obvious reason. [He] thought black power would be the end of [his] mother” (26). However, later in his life he began to appreciate her eccentricities, showing his maturity. James also recalled his mother's sympathetic view of the black race as a whole, and how she believed that whites were consistently racist towards them. Despite her drawbacks, she still insisted on having her children attend white schools, in order to get a better education (29). The book as a whole was McBride’s attempt at re-living his past and discovering his life; at one point in the book, he recalled a point where he came to the realization that he truly knew very little about his family history, as he had to call “her long-distance, in Philadelphia, to find out [her maiden name] and she was suddenly evasive” (266).