When Your Default Mode is Appeasement. Commentary on Elissa Matthews’s “A Good Man”

If you’ve gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelette, then what do you get if you spend your entire life side-stepping eggshells? In Elissa Matthews’s “A Good Man,” the narrator presents this very scenario. We see a man who is known for being, well… good.

As the story of this man’s life unfolds, we see someone who is unwavering in his diligence to do good. Short-term good. Feel good good. Nice guy good. Does that mean he is good? “Everyone smiled when they saw him, and he smiled back,” our narrator informs us, “[h]e did more than his share of the chores.” This man, “…gently tucked a blanket around his wife if she fell asleep on the couch…” and so on, and so forth.

But where’s the passion? Do we get a closer look? What happens if there’s a confrontation? Well, the narrator gives us that too. The story transitions to a specific scene where, “I first encountered him in the grocery store in town one afternoon…” What we see is this good man teetering on the edge of disaster. It is a critical junction. How do you respond when your eight-year-old child publicly demonstrates that he’s sharper than you and has a bigger voice? There’s a lesson to be learned and it’s not for the child in this scene.

Matthews has made excellent use of juxtapositions throughout the story. Through this push-pull tension, we continually get a sense of what’s happening and what’s not. For example, the narrator gives us a contrast by using the negative, “He didn’t drink. He didn’t smoke or snort cocaine…” and follows that up with, “His children never had to wear long sleeves or calamine lotion and tell the teacher they had poison ivy.” The reader receives a fuller picture than just action and consequence. We get a wide connection to all possible outcomes of human nature over a span of time. He’s not this thing, so we can infer that thing.

What we’re being set-up for, however, is a logic trap. Cause and effect is a long-game, not a short one. And it’s not one-dimensional. Our narrator’s assessment of the grocery store scene becomes a problematic statement, “I hoped I would be as good a father when it was my turn.” Something’s wrong. What’s going on? Read the full story, including its very poignant conclusion, and decide for yourself.

Source: Matthews, Elissa. “A Good Man.” QuibbleLit, is. 11, August 2023, https://www.quibblelit.com/a-good-man-by-elissa-matthews.

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