16 pages • 32 minutes read
Angelo 'Eyeambic' GeterGood Man
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Performing Taught Masculinity
A crux of Geter’s argument in “Good Man” is that the ways that men are socialized into masculinity are harmful both to women and to the men themselves. Geter intentionally phrases his lines to point to the larger effects of social expectations. By pushing his audience to see that the world at large causes men to perform a toxic version of masculinity, Geter convinces readers and listeners alike that a good man is an oxymoron.
The introductory stanza helps reveal what the ideal “good man” is supposed to be, through the lens of Geter’s sister: a “prince” who is “worthy,” loyal, and heterosexual. The glorification of wealth, stability, and straightness is bound up in cultural expectations about who is valuable: Men who meet these patriarchal expectations are, to Geter’s sister, “good,” versus all of the other men she knows. The remainder of the poem works to undo this narrative through Geter’s many-layered argument about the negative aspects of performing taught masculinity.
In order to present a number of subtle arguments about socially taught manhood, Geter weaves several threads of lyrical metaphors together to paint his picture. “[…] from the day we’re born” (Line 19), Geter describes, men are “trained” to hunt, to “se[t] traps,” and to “drown” women’s’ spirits. Through these multiple images, Geter challenges the audience to understand socialized masculinity as inescapable, toxic, and ever-present. Only men who understand this can seek to resist it, and Geter views even this as an impossible task: Geter himself closes on the note that he isn’t a good man, but he will “die trying” (Line 61).
Intersection of Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation
Underlying many of the more explicit arguments in Geter’s poem are some key perspectives about how people’s identities are shaped by their particular intersection of race, gender, and sexual orientation. Even by the end of the first stanza, a good man is intimately linked to straightness. In the second stanza, this is expanded to include Blackness: Geter’s sister helps raise his “little [B]lack self” (Line 13) so, to her, he “better be a good man” (Line 14). The connections between Blackness, masculinity, and heterosexuality appear primarily as a consequence of wider social expectations. The “illusion” of the ways these identities must be performed is part of what Geter is resisting: Since men like him were never shown or taught how to be truly “good,” they must seek a new way to occupy their identities.
Contrast Between Positive and Negative
Almost the entirety of “Good Man” focuses on contrasts between positives and negatives. These are primarily linked to masculinity and its impacts; Geter repeatedly juxtaposes negative values with the positive things that women could become. The intensity of the repetition of this dynamic builds over the course of the poem so that the tone almost has the effect of a sermon or lecture: Geter’s images layer on top of one another so that the positive builds to feel more and more important while the negative feels absolutely undesirable.
Most of Geter’s comparisons fall into three general structures: men forcing women to stay at home rather than become educated, men treating women like sexual objects rather than as whole people, and men treating women as people to be conquered rather than as royalty. Geter says that men would “rather see [women] wash the dishes than make the Dean’s list” (Line 25) and tell women to “bust it open while we bust down [their] self esteem” (Line 42). In these, as in other juxtapositions, Geter reifies the ways that toxic masculinity’s perceived positives are actually filled with harmful effects.
The thematic contrast between positive and negative also supports a structural aspect of Geter’s poem as he builds to his final stanza. By consistently moving between alternating statements, Geter’s poem weaves back and forth on top of itself so that the reader can anticipate a new kind of statement or image before it comes. This is a critical feature of Geter’s poem as a spoken word piece: By creating a somewhat predictable plot structure with his juxtaposition, Geter helps an audience of listeners stay engaged and maintain their understanding of his many metaphors.
