Yellow Raft In Blue Water Analysis

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Brianna Barkley Ms. Inganni English 091 29, October 2014 Christine and Rayona’s Struggle Christine and Rayona are both brought up in a very similar way. In the book Yellow Raft in Blue water by Michael Dorris, Rayona and Christine both have the most complicating lives, yet still fight for a better way of life. In this story there are many similarities of the way both mother and daughter have grown up. Although Rayona and Christine were brought up in different times and have lived totally different lives, they are both struggling with a lot of the same issues. Rayona and Christine are both strong individuals but suffer from their own insecurities due to things that have happened in their lives. First Rayona and her mother both…show more content…
Christine says “I had to find my own way and I started out in the hole, the bastard daughter of a woman who wouldn’t even admit she was my mother and the fat sister of the prettiest boy that ever lived” (Dorris141). Christine provides insight on the way she views herself from the very beginning of being a teenager. As Christine gets older she is very promiscuous, this is her way of showing that she wants to be accepted and loved for once in her life. Christine did not take precautions on using birth control and gets pregnant with Rayona. Later on Christine gets married and just when everything seemed to be going good for her she finds out that her husband, Elgin starts cheating on her and this is when she starts hating herself and making up excuses on why he would do something like that to her. Christine is so mad she tells Ray that after fifteen going on sixteen years of marriage, her father thinks he’s in love. She says it as if it is a spoiled fish to her (Dorris 11). Christine expresses to her frustration with her husband “with some twenty two year old bubblehead doper named Arletta. Arletta!” (Dorris 11). Christine is so depressed that Elgin is cheating on her that she begins to be self-destructive in many ways which causes her to not be a good mother to…show more content…
Rayona hates it more than anything that when she goes anywhere, people poke fun at her and make racial remarks to her which makes her feel insecure about herself. When Ray meets Foxy for the first time, Father Tom introduces her and Foxy says, “Your Christine’s kid…The one whose father is a nigger” (Dorris 44). Not only does Rayona have to deal with racism her mother is always putting her in bad situations. There has been quite a few times where Christine has attempted to leave Ray and told her that she wanted to commit suicide. One time in the very beginning of the story Elgin goes to visit Christine in the hospital, Rayona had not seen him in 5 months and Christine did not want to tell him about her sickness. Christine and Elgin get into a huge fight and yells at her husband to go back to his little black girl. (Dorris 7) “Forget us. Who needs you anyway” (Dorris 7). Christine collapses into the pillows and waits for Elgin to respond and expects him to say sorry but he doesn’t. This causes Christine to go crazy and she leaves the hospital and when Rayona goes to the car she finds her mother just about to leave. Rayona goes to talk to her mother about what she is doing and Christine tells her that she is leaving and

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