Peaches Essay -- Character Analysis, Marcus, Reginald McKnight

In the story â€Å"Peaches†, Reginald McKnight introduces his main characters, one being Marcus. Marcus is a good guy, but he is described in many different ways, due to his bad temper and immaturity level. Throughout the work, author Reginald McKnight takes great care to illustrate situations and describe feelings and personalities that many men experience. This way, even though Marcus is having trouble controlling himself around other people and arrogant at times, he still tries to be a better person for Rita and for himself. He does this by going out of the country to experience other cultures and enhance his morals. Although Marcus is strong and eager, he is actually an easily irascible, impatient, immature, manipulative, unstable man whose inexperience does not prepare him for the frequent mishaps in his life. Marcus himself is white, and like most guys he is constantly nitpicking at not just anything, but everything he says and does. Even in realizing that he is being a complete neurotic, one can see that Marcus actions are a sign of his impatience. He has habits of always unknowingly insulting himself and exclaiming, â€Å"I’m the one who needs to change,† (73) two practices that reveal his insecurity and contradict his belief that, â€Å"If anything, I can give you more because my world is so different from yours† (74) which he stated to Rita. Even when Rita re-assures Marcus that â€Å"It’s got nothing to do with your beliefs. Really. I’m just preoccupied†¦..we can talk about this tomorrow, at dinner?† (74) His first concern is himself and asks Rita â€Å"Is it because you think I got no soul or some crap like that, isn’t it?† (74). He feels that his race is the reason Rita has been avoiding him. He reasons that the tension e xisting between him a... ...ially drawn to Rita, not for her â€Å"frizzy, uncombable black hair, or burdensome breasts, but the face that he insisted no guy on campus could forget, and the legs he insisted were not birdlike† (73). Due to Marcus’ personality traits he did not seem to notice that he was sabotaging any possibility of ever having anything serious with Rita. In creating a character so obvious in his irascibility, duality and selfishness, Reginald McKnight also creates a character we can sympathize with. McKnight created a sense that Marcus was an eager individual, who set himself apart from society, but in doing so, he set himself up for failure. This, if anything, makes use aware that negative remarks and statements can lead to a very negative end result. We are forced to form our own conclusion and conform to the fact that no matter how many miles away, one person may never change.