In the story “Peaches”, Reginald McKnight introduces his main characters, one of which is Marcus. Marcus is a good guy, but he is described in different ways, due to his confidence and insecurity. Throughout the work, author Reginald McKnight takes great care to illustrate situations and describe feelings and personalities experienced by many men. In this way, even though Marcus has difficulty controlling himself around other people and is sometimes arrogant, he still tries to be a better person for Rita and for himself. He does this by going out of the country to learn about other cultures and improve his morals. On the one hand Marcus proves to be incredibly confident, on the other hand he shows signs of being insecure, manipulative, unstable and incapable of achieving change. Marcus' actions continually demonstrate how confident he is. Whether it's next door or across the country, Marcus always has his eyes on Rita because he sees her as _______. While, he states “I have had relationships with black women, Hispanic women, and Asian women” (75), thinking that his experiences with other women make him immediately able to understand Rita. Because of ______, Marcus thinks that such an understanding of Rita would be ________. He is so eager to be with her that he fails to see her as an individual. For Marcus, past experiences are enough to sustain a healthy relationship. According to Marcus, “he had been through all this before” (75) and told Rita that she could tell him anything, thinking it had to do with a cultural gap. In fact, Marcus said to Rita: “You can tell me. I think I would understand” (75). [What is he referring to here?] His confidence, combined with his need for Rita's recognition and approval, makes his confidence seem... middle of paper... manipulative and unstable. In creating such a confident, insecure, manipulative, and unstable character, Reginald McKnight also creates a character we can sympathize with. McKnight created the sense that Marcus was a confident individual who stood out from society, but in doing so he was setting himself up for failure. Where the only woman who could make a difference began to fear him. Once that happened, everything went downhill as Marcus started ignoring Rita's response at any given time. Whether he was fully aware of it or not, Marcus built walls around himself and avoided talking about his personal life in any depth. This, if anything, makes us aware that negative remarks and statements can lead to a very negative outcome. We are forced to draw our own conclusions and conform to the fact that no matter how many miles away, a person may never change.