Life has often been compared to a journey, an adventure toward wholeness and happiness, toward peace and fulfillment. Many of the most difficult moments are those in which people must decide which “path” to take, especially during the adolescent years. The road that leads us to genuine happiness and inner peace is often very difficult to see. Lawrence Kohlberg, a psychoanalyst, recognizes that all individuals must develope and form their own moral beliefs and principles. He created six essential stages of moral development but, “movement from stage to stage is a long term process, occurring gradually rather than in sudden leaps” (Foigel). In the autobiography The Color of Water by James McBride, the protagonist Ruth McBride slowly unravels her corrupt life to her son James McBride and emphasizes her adolescence to be the most difficult time in her life. Ruth McBride, a white woman struggling to raise twelve biracial children during a time of racism and unheard of biracial marriages, reaches stage five of Kohlberg’s moral development in her long journey to make a decent living and find her true self. Ruth McBride grows up in a Jewish family which emigrates from Poland to New York and finally to Virginia. Within this religious family love is not shown very often especially when Ruth needs it the most. Her innocence and purity are taken away when she has to not only work all day but her own father also sexually abuses her. Even as she recollects about her life she makes it known that, It affected me in a lot of ways, what he did to me.
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