The Color of Water

“It was always so hot, and everyone was so polite, and everything was all surface but underneath it was like a bomb waiting to go off. I always felt that way about the South that beneath the smiles and southern hospitality and politeness were a lot of guns and liquor and secrets” (James McBride). I thought this was an amazing quote. That used a very symbolic quote showing how the author, James McBride, showing how he felt people and living in the south.  I thought this quote really showed a how the south influenced people to feel a certain way about each other. Weather it's dealing with races or old kept secrets. That kept people with a burden of resentment on their shoulders, towards other people or themselves.

I thought this was a very well written quote because it almost uses a Hippocratic thought of how people showed a polite manor towards each other. But it wasn't invisible to people and especially to him. How people had an underlining opinion about each other, and that people were just waiting to really show how they feel towards each other. I also really liked how the author used the word bomb. To really show the feeling he felt other people felt. But actually how he had felt too.  It showed how he felt like there was an unspoken war going down in the south, and he felt like it was just ready to explode.

I think the order of the author's word show how he felt resentment against living in the south instead of living in his original home, New York. The order of the authors words show he felt that things may have seemed nice and in the south. But in contradictory at the end of the quote the author explains that it really is not.