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    A Study Guide for Bernard Malamud's "Black Is My Favorite Color"
    A Study Guide for Bernard Malamud's "Black Is My Favorite Color"
    A Study Guide for Bernard Malamud's "Black Is My Favorite Color"
    Ebook40 pages45 minutes

    A Study Guide for Bernard Malamud's "Black Is My Favorite Color"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Bernard Malamud's "Black Is My Favorite Color," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJul 15, 2016
    ISBN9781535819534
    A Study Guide for Bernard Malamud's "Black Is My Favorite Color"

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      A Study Guide for Bernard Malamud's "Black Is My Favorite Color" - Gale

      4

      Black Is My Favorite Color

      Bernard Malamud

      1963

      Introduction

      Bernard Malamud’s Black Is My Favorite Color was first published in the Reporter on July 18,1963. It has since been reprinted in several short story collections, the first being Idiots First, also in 1963.

      Eight years before Black is My Favorite Color was published, African-American Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man, igniting the Civil Rights movement that reached its height at the same time Malamud was writing his story. The outcry for racial equality that characterized the 1950s and 1960s influenced much literature, including Malamud’s. In particular, Black Is My Favorite Color picked up on the tense relations between the Jewish-American and African-American communities. The story concerns Nat Lime, a fortyish, white, Jewish bachelor in Harlem who repeatedly tries to integrate himself into the African-American community by dating black women, hiring black personnel in his liquor store, and trying to do good deeds for blacks wherever possible. All of his efforts end up backfiring, as his status as a white, Jewish man continually alienates him from all African Americans.

      Critics have interpreted the cynical tone of Malamud’s story to mean that the author thought the attempts at racial integration at the heart of the Civil Rights movement were hopeless. The story featured a harsh realism, which was a dramatic departure from the mythical style that Malamud had become famous for with novels like 1952’s The Natural, his first and still his best-known book. Malamud is often praised for his short stories, and several critics consider Black Is My Favorite Color to be one of his best. A current version of the story can be found in The Complete Stories, published after the author’s death by The Noonday Press in 1997. Malamud is also known for his first short story collection, The Magic Barrel (1958), which won the National Book Award for fiction.

      Author Biography

      Bernard Malamud was born in Brooklyn, New York, on April 28, 1914, to Russian Jewish immigrant parents who owned and operated a grocery store. Although his parents had little education and knew very little about the arts, Malamud found his way into the prestigious Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn. He published his early short stories in the school’s literary magazine, The Erasmian. After earning a bachelor’s degree from the City College of New York in 1936 and his master’s degree from Columbia University in 1942, Malamud taught night classes at Erasmus Hall. During

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