The story “The Goodness of Matt Kaizer'' tells about a boy named Matt Kaizer, he loved to do bad stuff. His father was a minister, so everyone expected Matt to be really good like his father. He had a group of friends that made a gang and they dared him to go see a dying man. He accepted the dare because he never declined a dare. He bought some flowers, went to see Mary’s father, and met Mary on the way there. He walked up to Mary’s dad and his dad mistaken him as an angel, he left afterward and Mary’s dad wanted him to come back the next day. The next day he went there and Mary’s dad released all his stress and he was getting better. Matt had cured him and finally he was convinced that he was an angel. The three problems/themes are the conflict between conflict and reality, he knew things that he did were bad, but always got peer pressured by his gang, and he always doubted himself and convinced himself that he was bad.
The conflict between conflict and reality: He always thought he was the worst and he always did bad things. He was “the baddest of the baddest” and “there is nothing good about him at all.” This was supposed to be normal for kids that haven’t matured, but everyone thought this was really weird just because his dad was a minister. Everyone expected him to be a really mature kid that listened to parents and teachers all the time and follow the rules all the time, but he was just a normal kid so he still did bad things.
His second problem was that he knew that the things he did were bad, but he got peer pressured and somehow was forced to do so. For example, at first when his gang asked him to go see a dying man, he didn’t want to, but his gang said they thought he never declined a dare. This shows that he knew when he was doing bad things, but always got peer pressured by his gang. He understood manners and knew what was bad, but he still did it because he didn’t want to embarrass himself and didn’t want to show that he was scared or didn’t want to do it to his gang. He showed that he has manners by buying flowers for Mary’s dad and the way he talked to Mary.
His final problem was that he always doubted himself and convinced himself that he was bad. He always thought he was bad and always convinced himself that he was bad until the last time he visited Mary’s dad and cured him he felt that he was an angel. His gang tried to convince him that he was still bad, but this time he didn’t get convinced by anyone. This shows how much he had matured over the conversation with Mary’s dad. He learned to not listen to anyone else and listen to what he thinks and turned out to destroy the gang which meant he was done doing bad things.
In conclusion, Matt had the conflict between being a devil and angel even though he knew things that he did were bad. He always got peer pressured by his gang, and convinced himself that he was bad. But he matured a lot after accidentally being considered as an angel, so he learned to listen to his own opinion over others, and stop doing bad things. Finally, he went angel on the gang, and the gang couldn’t hold together.
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