The Color of Water

What the differences and the similarlity between Jmes and Ruth?

I hope to know what the events they share in it and what the events they could be opposite each other.

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I think that the differences mainly lie in Ruth's upbringing compared to James's. Ruth went through an agonizing separation from friends and family in Suffolk. She was basically disowned from her Jewish family for her cultural views for her relationship with a black man. Ruth would subsequently undergo countless hardships of abuse, poverty and identity. James did not have the instability that his mother did. Although, being of mixed race, James had questions, they didn't plague him. James had a caring father and, by that time, Ruth had evolved into a strong, determined and wise mother figure. Unlike his Ruth, James grew up with the retrospect of his mother's experiences. James shared the same sense of place and belonging that his mother had not discovered until much later in her life.