How does Bernard Malamud use imagery in Black Is My Favorite Color?

Malamud is a master when it comes to evoking images in his readers' minds. In this story, his stark, realistic depictions of life in Brooklyn in the 1920s are very telling. "We didn't starve but nobody ate chicken unless we were sick, or the chicken was." With this line, Nat communicates to the reader that his family was really poor. Unless they are sick and need chicken noodle soup, the only way his family ever eats chicken is if there's something wrong with it and nobody else wants it. Malamud's descriptions are particularly gritty when describing the African-American experience. Nat, when describing how much worse it was for African Americans, says: "The Negro houses looked to me like they had been born and died there, dead not long after the beginning of the world." Malamud evokes an image of death and decay, giving the reader a better picture of how bad the houses look, and underscoring the feeling of decay in the story.