The Fourth State of Matter -- Jo Ann Beard
Beard Uses Metaphors and a Variety of Perspectives to Recount Event
“The Fourth State of Matter” by Jo Ann Beard is an essay published in The Boys of My Youth in 1998. Beard is an essayist and professor of creative nonfiction at Sarah Lawrence College.
Beard begins her essay by depicting her daily routine of caring for her collie and the daily frustrations of feeling a sense of hopelessness. While these actions may be boring to her audience, it serves to show how she uses them as a kind of “steadiness” in her life. That is, after the separation from her husband, she has nothing to look forward to, and has grown to accept her daily routine and life as filling the empty void within.
More Than Just a Dog
The collie is a character that is very interesting all through the story. Beard may have intended to use the collie as a metaphor for how her life was going at the time. The collie is shown unable to go upstairs, just lying at the bottom and staring at the furniture around her. Again, this seems to sum up Beard’s life. One cannot help but picture Beard just gazing off into space lackadaisically, unable to shake the constant feeling of pity.
The collie also may represent her husband in a profound way. When Beard goes into the discussion with her co-worker about putting the dog to sleep, she is asked why she is letting this continue. One could argue that Beard is doing the same with her husband. She continues to talk with him on the phone, with the hopes of reconciling their differences and getting back together.
There is an interesting quote that she says to her collie before leaving for the office, “Wake up and smell zee bacons, I’m leaving and I’m never coming back.” This allows Beard to vent in her own way. On the other hand, she may ultimately want to experience what her husband felt after saying those exact words to her. The collie seems to be a culmination of everything she has felt after her husband decided to leave.
A Unique Voice & Style
Throughout the essay, the author’s tone comes off as exceedingly monotone. When first reading the essay, a majority of readers may get sucked into a very boring and tedious routine of her everyday life. From the caring of her collie, to her separation from her husband, and interactions with her colleagues, the audience does not really expect a major event happening in the future. This works well when Gang Lu is introduced. The reader is soon engulfed in a state of shock. There was nothing prior in the story to hint at an outcome such as a person killing innocent people.
The voice in this essay, at least in the beginning, is both lighthearted and moving at the same time. The author does well by setting up the audience to feel amounts of sympathy for her. However, towards the end of the essay, Beard is shown seeing a letter Gang Lu has written to his sister. The narrator’s voice appears to shift tones and actually get into the psyche of Lu before he went on the shooting spree. This was a very interesting way of giving the readers a new and fresh perspective. Again, the monotone voice at the beginning of the story helps make the climax of the story much more appalling. The reader is better suited to feel exactly what the author’s initial reaction was to this horrifying ordeal.
Jo Ann Beard
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