Literary Device Admiration: The Color of Water

One literary device I noticed the author uses very well and very often is flashback. The author alternates between two different perspectives in two different time periods. One of the two views in the book is from a young James McBride's standpoint and the other is his mother's perspective during her childhood. The author uses the flashbacks to his mother's past whereas in his own childhood he knew none of his mother's history. He emphasizes how secretive his mother is using dialogue between the two, "As a boy I never knew where my mother was from-where she was born, who her parents were. When I asked she'd say "God made me." When I asked if she was white, she'd say, "I'm light skinned,"and change the subject. It creates dramatic irony because I know  information and experiences from the mother's past while young James knows nothing. Reading about the mother's childhood puts a lot of things she does as a mother into perspective. For example their mother loves Christianity and influences it onto her children. As a child her father was a Jewish rabbi(which James doesn't know yet) and his unloving ways made the Jewish religion have a bad connotation for her, as it always reminded her of her dad. I think that's why she believes in Christianity so deeply, because it is how she found herself and a passion she never had growing up. I could use flashbacks in my own writing in addition to imagery because there are parts of my childhood that I remember in extreme detail that no one knows about. There are pieces of my childhood that played a huge role in me being who I am and describing that in such detail would add the characterization and clarity for the readers as it does for me in this book. The flashbacks and change of perspective fills in the blanks for me as I read because strictly from James's point of view the story is more vague because he doesn't know much yet. One of the my favorite, and most surprising and eye opening quote from his mother's past is "...but to be honest with you, I used to see that empty chair we left for Elijah at the table and wish I could be gone to wherever Elijah was, eating over somebody's house where your father didn't crawl into bed with you at night, interrupting your dreams so you don't know if it's really him or just the same nightmare happening over and over again." This quote was so shocking to me and I feel sympathy for the mother. It made me understand why she was so resistant to sharing her past. It's not a casual story you tell a nine year old over breakfast in the morning.