Poquette has a bachelor's degree in English and specializes in writing about literature. In the following essay, Poquette discusses Malamud's use of a first-person narrator to disguise the narrator's flaws in Malamud's story.

Upon first reading Malamud's "Black Is My Favorite Color," readers may be tempted to feel sorry for the protagonist, Nat Lime, a white, Jewish bachelor who has spent nearly four decades of his life trying— and failing—to find acceptance within the New York African-American community. Nat does so by performing good deeds for, and attempting to develop relationships with, black people. Indeed, Robert Solotaroff referred to the story as one of Malamud's "understandably painful" tales, "in which the generous, or at least justifiable, intentions of decent people are frustrated." However, when one looks past Nat's self-pitying narration and begins to examine both his actions and his faulty perception of them, Nat's...