The Color of Water

what does the "boy who lived in the mirror" represent to James?can you please put a quote to thank you so much

what does the "boy who lived in the mirror" represent to James?can you please put a quote to thank you so much

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The boy represents everything that James could not be in his childhood,

“I created an imaginary world for myself. I believed my true self was a boy who lived in the mirror. I’d lock myself in the bathroom and spend long hours playing with him. . . . I had an ache inside, a longing, but I didn’t know where it came from or why I had it. The boy in the mirror, he didn’t seem to have an ache.”

The boy in the mirror became an idea that James could take his frustrations out on. The boy becomes everything that James wants to be and yet cannot. The boy in the mirror, he had a white mother and money, comes to represent obstacles in James's life that he must overcome.