The Color of Water

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.

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).