“The Fourth State of Matter’ is, I think, the perfect essay. I hesitate to make such a definitive statement, but, for me, it is the apex of narrative nonfiction. That is partly because–to put it simply–the essay is good writing. Consider all the ways Beard uses the “basics of good writing in any form’ dictated by Miller in Tell it Slant, and how her use of these elements creates a dynamic reading experience:
- well-crafted scenes
- specificity and detail
- character development
- dialogue
- point of view
- image and metaphor
As an example from the work, reread the scene where Jo Ann, Bob, and Chris all discuss plasma together, and note how Beard’s writing reflects Miller’s tenets:
They’re speaking in physics, so I’m left out of the conversation. Chris apologetically erases one of the pictures I’ve drawn on the blackboard and replaces it with a curving blue arrow surrounded by radiating chalk waves of green.
“If it’s plasma, make it in red,’ I suggest. We’re all smoking semi-illegally in the journal office with the door closed and the window open. We’re having a plasma party.
“We aren’t discussing plasma,’ Bob Smith says condescendingly. A stocky, short-tempered man, he’s smoking a horrendously smelly pipe. The longer he stays in here the more it feels as if I’m breathing small daggers in through my nose. He and I don’t get along; each of us thinks the other needs to be taken down a peg. Once we had a hissing match in the hallway which ended with him suggesting that I could be fired, which drove me to tell him that he was already fired, and both of us stomped into our offices and slammed our doors.
“I had to fire Bob,’ I tell Chris later.
“I heard,’ he says. Bob is his best friend. They spend at least half of each day standing in front of blackboards, writing equations and arguing about outer space. Then they write theoretical papers about what they come up with. They’re actually quite a big deal in the space-physics community, but around here they’re just two guys who keep erasing my pictures.
Someone knocks on the door and we put our cigarettes out. Bob hides his pipe in the palm of his hand and opens the door.
Notice how much suggestive detail that Beard packs into such a short space, a tiny moment in time. We have metaphors large and small, from the “daggers’ in her nose from the smell to another mention of plasma, which is the metaphorical center of the essay, its unifying force. The people in this scene break rules, argue, joke, and exist in a complex relationship to one another; her relationships with Bob and Chris are further established in this scene, for example, through their banter and details about the office dynamics. It is such detail that makes a scene come alive for readers. Whether you are writing a scene for nonfiction or for fiction, remember that living scenes have layers.
But what truly makes this essay shine for me is its deft handling of metaphorical relationships, i.e., the way Beard weaves different narrative threads that become metaphorical threads over the span of the essay. These threads are the dog, the squirrels, the husband, Chris, and the shooting.
We often think of a metaphor as simple technique, as a basic comparison between two unlike things, and/or a merging of those things so that they become forever interlinked. But metaphor is not always so straightforward in its presentation, not always this mathematical A=B correlation between an object and an abstraction; it’s not so much what an image or idea represents as it is a kind of operation, a kind of thinking. Plasma–the fourth state of matter, found in the blood, in stars and in physics, in neon signs–is functioning metaphorically in this piece, but it would probably be reductive to say it represents any one exact “thing.’ Instead, the plasma seems to bind the five narrative threads together.
Beard smartly introduces the five threads in the very beginning of the essay, which prepares us for what is to come, and what is at stake, as all good introductions do:
The collie wakes me up about three times a night, summoning me from a great distance as I row my boat through a dim, complicated dream. She’s on the shoreline, barking. Wake up. She’s staring at me with her head slightly tipped to the side, long nose, gazing eyes, toenails clenched to get a purchase on the wood floor. We used to call her the face of love.
She totters on her broomstick legs into the hallway and over the doorsill into the kitchen, makes a sharp left at the refrigerator–careful, almost went down–then a straightaway to the door. I sleep on my feet in the cold of the doorway, waiting. Here she comes. Lift her down the two steps. She pees and then stands, Lassie in a ratty coat, gazing out at the yard.
In the porch light the trees shiver, the squirrels turn over in their sleep. The Milky Way is a long smear on the sky, like something erased on a blackboard. Over the neighbor’s house, Mars flashes white, then red, then white again. Jupiter is hidden among the anonymous blinks and glitterings. It has a moon with sulfur-spewing volcanoes and a beautiful name: Io. I learned it at work, from the group of men who surround me there. Space physicists, guys who spend days on end with their heads poked through the fabric of the sky, listening to the sounds of the universe. Guys whose own lives are ticking like alarm clocks getting ready to go off, although none of us are aware of it yet.
This is a model beginning. All the five main narrative threads are present here, and Beard has already begun interweaving and connecting them. See, for example, how “The Milky Way is a long smear on the sky, like something erased on a blackboard’ echoes the scene we just looked at above, when Chris erases Jo Ann’s drawing, right before Chris’s life is soon after “erased’ by the shooting, and, of course, The Milky Way image also carries within it the plasma they were discussing in the scene in which the blackboard was erased. Every moment in this essay is connected to another moment, and all the threads connect in some way to plasma, which unifies the piece and, fittingly, is present in both the title and the final paragraph, accentuating its significance.
Trace the threads for yourself throughout the essay to see how deftly Beard balances them, how she gives each its own role in the greater narrative And consider how that balance is integral to the essay’s functioning. Beard treats each narrative thread– the dog, the squirrels, the husband, Chris, and the shooting–as vital to the working whole. She does not privilege the shooting above all other trauma, as we might expect, and in this way she helps us see these moments as charged particles moving through time and space, just like us. Almost all of the observable matter in the universe is plasmatic, and thus plasma is thus something that connects everything to itself, a rather sublime thought.
Please post your reading response to “The Fourth State of Matter” below (remember, by Thursday). In your response, please talk about a scene you found particularly well-written and why.
Sarah Corbett
Reading Response 3:
This was so incredibly well written. As I reread it I could see how all the threads were tied together, and I could see how she had foreshadowed the events in the beginning – but I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen the first time I read it. When I got to the shooting I was dumbfounded, because I assumed that the main narrative would be her handling her dying dog.
Beards writing was very detailed, very descriptive, and very emotional, to the point where I found myself falling into the reading – the way I used to do with Harry Potter, or almost any Jodi Picoult novel. The kind of reading where you sink into it, and you forget that you’re not part of the story. And while I haven’t read enough essays to definitively say it’s the PERFECT essay, like our professor has; I agree that it was absolutely fantastic, and should probably used as a model for the writing style one should keep in mind when writing a personal essay.
For me, the most well written, moving, and emotional portion of the essay was not the shooting. It was actually the narrative about her life with her dying collie; the dogs stiff joints, inability to walk up and down stairs, and the nights she spends in the living room to keep her collie calm. I think however, the most painful part, was when the narrator is having the conversation with Chris about her dog. He tells her she has control over how much her dog suffers, and the narrator responds by saying that she couldn’t; and then goes on to explain that deep inside she just wished her dog would fall asleep and not wake up.
This situation is not one I’ve been in before, but will be relatively soon. Since the author wrote in such an emotional and convincing way, anytime her collie was mentioned, I just saw my dog, Mushu. That’s because she is getting to the middle of her life, and Aussies (a cousin to the collie) tend to have the same types of medical issues that were described in the authors narrative, like hip dysplasia, around the 3/4 mark of their life. So the vivid detail put into the difficulties of trying to take care of a suffering pet, the recollection of puppy memories, and then the inability to put her to sleep yourself, was a lot to take in: I just kept picturing it happening to Mushu. It’s a situation I dread, and this essay just plopped me right into the heart of it.
Christy Barrett
Wow, that was beautifully done. Beard is so descriptive, I was pulled in and didn’t want to stop reading. I really enjoyed her descriptions; some examples: “broomstick legs”, “The whole house is bathed in sunlight”, and “He’s hip in a professorial, cardigan/jeans kind of way.” She’s so specific with her descriptions, but she makes it feel so casual and soothing. It isn’t tedious or tiresome for the reader. Her dream and reality intermingle, and it feels real to me. haven’t we all experienced this sensation? “I sleep on my feet..” is such an accurate description of how we feel when we must face the day but aren’t quite ready yet. She describes the Milky Way as a long smear in the sky. I was hooked. She even let’s evening have its way with her. I could go on and on about how much I love her descriptions, but suffice it to say I love her.
She sets her scenes up beautifully. One example is: “I’ve called in tired to work. It’s mid-morning and I’m shuffling around in my long underwear, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. The whole house is bathed in sunlight and the faint odor of used diapers. The dogs are being mild-mannered and charming; I nudge the collie with my foot.” I can see her there though I have no idea what she looks like. I can feel the dog’s fur on her foot.
She uses every sense in her essay, and particularly in the shooting scene, they made me feel like I was there. I found that the way she writes so casually about her life, the mundane day-to-day, the casual problems we all tend to have… it made the shooting more surprising. But she doesn’t even make it the focal point of the story. The focus seems to be on the everyday, even as the action is happening, you still feel her with her dog, changing blankets, avoiding her deadbeat husband.
This was awesome.
Miranda Reynolds
I have chosen to discuss the scene after the shooting where she is watching the news. Even though the audience has just witnessed what should be the most shocking event of the essay, somehow her description of the news proves to be even more suspenseful.
Her characterization of Chris as the special friend in her life, even more so than her husband, perfectly foreshadows her emotional turmoil when he dies. He is characterized as a warm and spunky kind of person, which also seems to tie into the underlying thread of “plasma.” Her comment to him early on that “plasma is blood” fits into an overall representation of him as a symbol of life to her. He seems to be the only one that can drag her out of her personal problems.
This is why her word choice in the news scene is particularly well done. Her use of the word “sacrifice” and how Chris is the one she cannot let go of suggests that she feels sacrificing him would be somehow alienating herself from her own life. Beard also makes good use of sentence structure. For a couple of paragraphs, she mirrors her sense of frustration at how the news lady drags on and on by lengthening her sentences. Then suddenly, there is one short paragraph with Chris’s name, showcasing that fact that even though she needed to know the truth and was expecting it, she was not ready for it.
I also thought that her attention to detail made for an interesting conclusion to this scene. Beard uses the imagery of the squirrels that were extracted from her house earlier on to display her feelings for the dead. Her sensory observations of the darkness and silence demonstrate how different her house feels from when the squirrels were here, implying her depression at the loss of her friend.
Nadia Finley
A scene I found to particularly well written was the squirrel extermination scene. From the ins and outs of the dog and the “the husband” themes to the engaging introduction of Caroline to the action-packed squirrel chase, there was a lot of good writing present to hold it all together.
I loved how Beard reveals Caroline, “the ex-beauty queen,” to us. Beard describes her in such a simple yet descriptive way so that the reader does not get bogged down with overwhelming detail. I know it can be tempting to describe people exactly as one imagines them (down to the mole), so I really appreciate how Beard both gives adequate direct descriptions alongside a plethora of indirect descriptions.
Throughout the scene, Beard’s relationship with Caroline is continually being “described,” not through phrases like, “we’ve been close since middle school,” but, rather, through scenes presenting their actions and the nature of their conversations with each other (sitting companionly together smoking, “Don’t try to give me zucchini.”). So much is given not only about Caroline as a character but also about how Beard views her character, which is expressed through Beard’s writing. We can see this in how the comparison between Caroline in leather gloves and a tool belt to the picture of her in an evening gown not only gives us insight into what Caroline has done previously but also shows us Beard’s amazement at how diverse Caroline’s talents are.
Within the squirrel extermination scene, the dog, squirrel, and husband stories lean on each other like sticks of a teepee. They each have a tidbit that stakes a claim in the scene, each holding significance for it’s own narrative but ultimately cumulating with the others into one grander story.
Caroline draws these threads together and expands them. For the squirrel story, Caroline progresses the narrative directly. For the husband and the dog stories, Caroline expounds on the story, giving us another perspective on the dog’s condition and the “the husband” situation.
Despite technically being incomplete, the squirrel chase was totally exhilarating. Writing out each and every squirrel capture would eventually become old and tedious to read, so Beard instead gives us a solid first run along with a memorable, abbreviated last run with the baby squirrel. All the while, the present tense writing holds the reader’s attention, placing them in the moment.
So many writing decisions went into the squirrel extermination scene, and I am sure that there are many more that I am not aware of. Seeing that I learn well from studying examples, I intend to keep “The Fourth State of Matter” in mind as a reference for future writing.
Johnny Bishop
So for this specific reading it was really difficult to decide which part was actually “well written.” The entire story itself was so well written that I honestly think that this is probably my favorite story I’ve read in this class because of how drawn in the writer made me.
That being said there is actually for me two parts that really stood out to me the most to me was the way she took care of her dog and the sensory details that she uses to describe the care and love she has for her dog even in the collie’s old age. It made me remember one specific memory of a golden retriever named Shelby that my parents had and how he lived to 15 years of age. She mentions how the collie could no longer walk up the stairs and the mention of her falling down the steps to the door reminded me of how Shelby in his old age could no longer go up the stairs in our house. That is the kind of writing that I like the most because it draws you in and you want to continue reading to the very end.
The second part that I thought was well written was the very ending of the story. Even though this was a past situation she writes the story as if she was in the situation all over again. That stands out to me because even though she wasn’t actually there when it happened she still was able to describe the events leading up to the incident, as well as the trauma of losing her friend. She also ends the story on a brighter note of the memory of her friend that died.
Kyleigh McArthur
“The Fourth Sate of Matter” was very captivating and had me intrigued the whole time. I did find it a little confusing at some points, but that was solved by reading the confusing passage once or twice more and that did the trick just fine. I’m not a huge reader so that would explain the reason for it being a little confusing to me, and I had to look up the definitions of a few words, but it is always fun learning new words to use on my friends.
The scene that stood out to me as being particularly well-written was towards the beginning when Jo Ann was talking about her old boarder collie getting too old to relieve itself outside. The beginning of the paragraph starts off with the description of “the dog at the bottom of the stairs…having mild strokes, which cause her to tilt her head inquisitively and also to fall over.” I could so easily picture a big staircase with a old dog sitting down on blankets with its head cocked trying to figure out what its human is doing carrying away the blankets it just peed on. Then later in the paragraph she describes the first time the dog had an accident and was “gazing with frantic concern at her own rear.” This specific scene made me a little bit sad picturing an old dog who had an accident on itself and not being able to control its bladder and feeling ashamed at what it’s done. So of course, the owner responded by trying to comfort it with pets and treats, which in turn trained the dog to think that it should be urinating on its blankets, how ironic.
Ainsley Smith
Reading Response 3
As a reader, I really enjoyed reading “The Fourth Stage of Matter” by Jo Ann Beard. I was extremely impressed with how well she crafted each of her scenes with such detail that tied together with the different areas of her life. Beard did an amazing job in balancing detail and at the same time keeping the writing simple so the reader was not lost in the reading. I was instantly hooked throughout the story and never lost interest in what I was reading and I believe that it is because her perfect amount of detail and imagery which helped me learn her character.
The scene I believe was the most well written was in the beginning of her essay as she describes her nights and her time with her older collie. She uses quick and subtle descriptions like, “broomstick legs,” “long nose,” and “face of love” to help paint a picture of Beard’s pet. Beard also mentions in her writing that her eldest dog is not as mobile so she carries her up and down stairs and has to adjust her legs in order to get comfortable. Beard’s actions towards her struggling collie resembles those of a mother who bend over backwards to help their children in any state of need.
During the scene where she is taking her collie out to use the bathroom, she not only explains what exactly she is doing, but also describes the scenery with great detail. One of my favorite lines is, “I sleep on my feet in the cold of the doorway, waiting,” because I can literally place myself in her shoes and feel the cold air wising against me as I wait for the dog. She describes both her state of mind but also the environment around her. During this scene, she mentions the squirrels who “turn over in their sleep,” which foreshadow the squirrels that live in her attic who keep her up at night. There were many different times throughout the essay where she foreshadowed different events within the essay.
My most favorite scene in her writing is where she is describing her day cleaning her dog’s pee accidents. To me, it shows who Jo Ann is as a person. Someone who is caring, consistent, and loving. She mentions, “The task of doing load after load of laundry is strangely satisfying,” which shows me that she is willing to go the extra mile to make her dog happy. The writing in this part of the narrative is interesting to me because she was able to take a normally gross and tiring situation, “Each time it happens, I stand up, dry her off, put fresh blankets underneath her, carry the peed-on blankets down to the basement, stuff them into the washer and into the dryer,” and change it into something heart warming as a reader. The routine she goes through of cleaning the blankets seems exhausting and repetitive and tiring. However, I feel she wrote it out to seem like that so the reader can picture the very actions she is doing and also to show why she is doing those things. To me, this stanza shows me her character without exactly telling me what king of a person she is. She merely shows through her actions which comes to life through her writing.
Jewel Blanchard
‘The Fourth State of Matter’, written by Jo Ann Beard was such a great reading. Jo Ann Beard does an exquisite job of articulating her feelings. While reading ‘The Fourth State of Matter’ I was in my feelings majorly. I even caught my heart racing in some areas and my eyes water up. Beard does an amazing job with describing scenes so that you feel you are right there, as well as describing each character. Beard’s writing had an emotional impact on me with her relationship to her collie that’s struggling/dying.
The scene that stuck with me that Beard does more than excellent on was describing how her nights go with her collie. How her collie wakes her up and the way she describes how she’s waking from her dream, a rowing boat and her collie is ashore barking and waiting for her. It’s creative and effective. How she articulates her feelings on her relationship with her collie and retraining her when her collie messes her blankets, I found that to be so touching.. How in comforting her dog she was able to change her outlook because she states that in retraining her dog she retrained herself. How she cheerfully goes down to her basement drenched in urine blankets to throw in the washer, you can see how much her collie means to her.
I found the relationship between Beard and her dog to be the most touching because it’s a hard thing to go through and you can tell that by her reading. She expresses her love, mixed feelings, and what she wishes for her dog.
Adeline Knavel
I found so many parts in “The Fourth State of Matter” intriguing and captivating. The author used great descriptions to describe so many parts of the story. I enjoyed reading her descriptions, “broomstick legs” made me think of my own dog and I think that connection really pulled me in more. “The Fourth State of Matter” was so well written that I couldn’t decide which part of the story stood out to me the most. I enjoyed reading the beginning of the story when Jo-Ann writes about her border collie being so old it wakes her up throughout the night to pee and how it is too old to remember to go outside. After reading that paragraph I instantly thought of my old husky being constantly waking me up in the middle of the night to go outside, and her being so old she couldn’t even remember if she was just outside. The part I found well written and intriguing the most was when Jo-Ann says “I keep the door of the spare bedroom shut at all times, because of the squirrels and because that’s where the vanished husbands belongings are stored”. After reading that sentence I scrolled to the beginning of the story and started to read it again in case I missed something. The paragraph continues and then Jo-Ann mentions in the story once again about her “vanished husband”. I thought her husband was dead because she refers to him as the vanished husband but then writes about how “he has reduced himself to a troubled voice on the telephone three or four times a day”. At this point, I’m so captivated by her writing and want to know if her husband is dead or not. This part of the story confused me, but her writing was so well written that I enjoyed the little confusion I had at first. I enjoyed reading “The Fourth State of Matter” by Jo-Ann because of the descriptive details she used in her writing.
Curtis Wolfe
I thought that “The Fourth State of Matter” was a very descriptive essay that kept me engaged from start to finish. I felt that she did an amazing job keeping the essay flowing with such detail that it didn’t feel as though the reader would be lost or confused. As the reader you don’t really know where the story is going from the beginning, so the tragic loss of Chris and her coworkers catches you off guard. But looking back though the essay it seemed as though there was some foreshadowing to something bad to come though because of some of her details of being alone. Another example that I think foreshadowed event was how her dog was close to dying and how she wasn’t ready to let go of her just yet so she would do anything to keep it alive and happy.
I thought that the whole essay was well written, so to pick one particular scene would be near impossible. But the scene that stood out to me the most though was when she talked about her collie. I grew up with a lot of dogs, none of them died at an early age. So for her to go into detail about how she took care of her collie and the stiffness she had, really brought me back to how my family and I would have to take care of our older dogs. No one really wants to put their dogs down. It is preferable if the dogs would just go to sleep and not wake up, just slip out of their skin and into the other world.
Andrew S.
Jo Ann Beard’s “The Fourth State of Matter” was easily one of the best essays I’ve ever read; the way the author structured the essay and utilized literary devices in order to develop a narrative were the primary reasons I think the essay was so enjoyable to read. Going into the essay, I thought it would be about a relatively casual scientific topic. However, Beard used the first half of the essay setting up character development through multiple, distinct narratives and tying them together, then throttling up the drama toward the end. By the time the shooting started– which was quite the twist to say the least– I was caught completely off guard, impacting me in a way I don’t think it would have had I not been able to understand the characters beforehand. Essentially, by the time I got to the end, I understood why the author didn’t just start with the shooting. Some examples of distinct narratives that contributed to character development were:
“Gang Lu no longer spends his evenings in the computer lab down the hall, running simulations and thinking about magnetic forces and invisible particles; he now spends them at the firing range, learning to hit a moving target with the gun he purchased last spring. He pictures himself holding the gun with both hands, arms straight out and steady; Clint Eastwood, only smarter.”
This was the first major hint to me that something serious was going on, which Beard accomplished by contrasting Gang Lu with his coworkers, describing him in a more sinister light. Equally insightful were the non work related paragraphs, such as the ones with Beard’s dog and estranged husband, as they work to establish her as a compassionate yet perturbed individual. More hints that she’s stressed came with passages such as:
“We sit in the darkening living room, smoking and sipping our cups of whiskey. Inside my head I keep thinking, Uh-oh, over and over. I’m rattled; I can’t calm down and figure this out.
“I think we should brace ourselves in case something bad has happened,” I say to Mary. She nods. “Just in case. It won’t hurt to be braced.”
This increased tension with foreshadowing while simultaneously telling me about Beard and how she felt at the time. This made me relate more to her and how she felt when the climax of the story hit during the shooting– to summarize, Beard’s separate narratives were tied together by the end of the story, when the foreshadowing and character development converged during the most intense moments in the story. To me, this illustrated the importance, and effectiveness, of using narrative to form character development, and the effect that character development has on the emotional attachment to the events taking place.
Ta'Mariah Jenkins
A piece of work that is not only mesmerizing but detailed and descriptive to where it feels you can imagine the text in your head. Beard has a way of creating an effective image through the use of text and wording. The range itself is also very impressive. As a writer, it’s not just describing the physical traits of characters that I find impressive, but to plant readers seed to imagine this character and the scene that is taking place. It takes that curiosity and imagery in another person’s mind to bring the characters to life. If an author can describe that through their own text and work through the mind of millions of people, you are a good writer.
An author’s writing is meant to bring a reader to feel some sort of way in accordance with the writing. Whether that’s the feeling of knowing something new, to even feel empty and/or nothing. Reading Beard’s piece you can tell that everything is intertwined and connected in some ways from the different events, to microscopic and space. We evaluate and calculate events that are more important to one another and seem to believe in great distances on what we do and what is done on earth. Beard breaks down differential events into an astrological essence that relates to stuff we forget in seventh grade after learning about space. Continuing in an underlining cycle of human beings only hearing the universe, but are they truly listening to what is being said to them?
If I could mention my favorite piece of Beard’s literary work, I would have to say is the collie talk for me. This is because the beginning draws me in with descriptive techniques and the world such as describing the collie with broomstick legs, giving me an image. As I read more I realize how the topic changes to space and I can’t help admire the flow of the writing and how Beard manages to do that.
Zachary Macintyre
I was not expecting the path that went down. The various details of mundane life really drove home the loss of her relationship with her husband, troubled though it may have been. Additionally, the first time I read through it, I felt that the didn’t really set up much in the way of foreshadowing for the shooting, and it felt really jarring around the time she started describing the letter. Now that I reread it, I find that there were a couple of things like the line about the scientists lives being like alarm clocks about to go off, I just didn’t quite get them in the context they were presented in. Overall, I really didn’t like the essay, but that may be largely personal preference. Another part that really bothers me is when the scientists are talking about plasma in physics, and she brings up plasma in biology, and, when her husband says “exactly” I get the distinct impression that she is being made fun of, and doesn’t even realize it. Maybe she did, but if so, I don’t think she really conveyed that she comprehended that she was being mocked and not commended. I really found myself identifying with Bob being frustrated when she pulled plasma out of nowhere when they are talking about something completely different. I tried really hard to be sympathetic, especially considering that she has obviously gone through a whole lot, but I couldn’t help but really dislike the writer as I was reading this essay. I guess I can see how a different audience might like it, but I really don’t.
Timberly Kneebone
“The Fourth State of Matter”, written by Jo Ann Beard is definitely one of my favorite pieces of reading that I have ever read. This piece reminded me of almost a movie. I found myself engaged in the story and wanting to reread it multiple times in order to catch every single detail. After reading the piece three times I was able to notice foreshadowing and key details that helped expand the story. Even simple words such as the word alone helped set a tone for the future events. The piece itself was written extremely well. Not only did the story have a continuous flow but it also used a perfect amount of literary devices in order to intrigue the reader.
When having to pick one scene I struggled a little because of how well written the entire essay was. I ended up really focusing on the scene where she talked about her collie. I was never able to have pets growing up because of how often my family moved. Her writing made me almost grow an emotional attachment to a dog that I never met. The amount of visual details given really transformed her writing and allowed me to see the story as though it was seen through my eyes. Being able to create a connection between a character in a story to a reader is extremely important and made the essay even more interesting to read. Her writing allowed me to experience a major life event that I never actually went through. Overall I really enjoyed reading “The Fourth State of Matter” by Jo Ann Beard
Katie Hopper
This scene starts with Gang Lu writing his suicide letter to his sister. Gang Lu is positioned eerily just “one room over” and we watch him prepare. Instead of just saying that he wrote his sister a letter and providing the letter at length, Beard adds tempo with her interjections, forcing you to stop and take a breath, building suspense. At first it’s a simple: “, he tells her.” and then “, and.” She then weaves in “Delicate Chinese characters all over a page. She was a kind and gentle sister, and he thanks her for that. He’s going to kill himself.” Describing the characters as delicate here is almost menacing and the consonance created by the “ch,” “c,” and “s” sounds in “Delicate” “Chinese” and “characters” creates a choppy tempo and texture on the tongue. The feeling that her tempo creates is echoed in the scene where Gang Lu carries out his abrupt executions, one by one, life by life. While the word “delicate” is soft it feels hard in this context. Beard then circles back to the words of the letter, a sentence charged with doom “You yourself should not be too sad about it, for at least I have found a few travelling companions to accompany me to the grave.” Beard lays out the implications in a tactile way, positioning the guns as at rest inside of his coat hiding on the back of his chair, weighing it down, waiting to do their damage. She ends the scene with his own words “My beloved second elder sister, I take my eternal leave of you.” and adds nothing further because she knows there is nothing more to say about this and all we can do is watch it unravel.
Casey Fetterhoff
The scene that instantly stuck out to me while reading this essay is the “I’ve called in tired to work” scene shortly into the story. I like it for the same reason you’ve already pointed out in the assignment page-The author fits a lot of content into a small package, but does it subtly. In the space of two paragraphs, you find yourself with a clear image of the house, the atmosphere, her pets and their temperaments, her own temperament, and her sense of humor.
You know how when you walk into a new house for the first time, there is a distinct impression? I’m not talking about a brand new, empty house, but rather one that is lived in-A house that is clearly “home” to somebody-Just not you. You get that distinct impression of smells and sights that you associate with that house. Whether that impression is musty and dusty, or clean and tidy, it’s there. Kind of like when you meet somebody and get close to them, and their clothes have a particular smell thanks to the laundry detergent they use-And that smell is something you associate with them.
The author builds a very distinct “association” of the atmosphere of her home, down to the light bathing the house in fresh life-But the interior of the house having an aura of NOT freshness (thanks to the diaper smell.) The great thing about this scene, to me, is how she provides this aura of her home in just a few short sentences.
Following suit, the author provides you with a distinct sense of the personality of her pets through her descriptions of their reactions to her leaving-The overdramatic Labrador who “understands English” as opposed to the little brown dog who cares only for toast. In addition, I like the humor the author applies in the scene, mostly through her interactions with the dogs-“Wake up and smell zee bacons” is exactly the kind of “pet talk” that people use with their animals all the time, and while it may not be objectively funny to most people, I think we can all relate to finding those little interactions positively rib-splitting when we say them in private with our pets, like an inside joke only you two share. Through her description of the dogs’ behavior, her indications of her own mood, and the sly humor in their interactions, she builds an image (in my mind at least) of her dogs not only being her pets, but also her roommates-Companions equal to her in their status in the house, rather than below her.
Hopefully I’ve gotten across what I’m trying to say about this scene, in truth it boils down to an affection I have for concise scenes that almost subconsciously slip a massive amount of content, implication, and imagination material into your head without having you slog through a mire of descriptors and small-detail sentences.
Gabriel Miller
I thought that the general theme of death and acceptance in “The Fourth State of Matter” was interesting. The continual correlation and foreshadowing of the dog to various moments, such as the focus of stairs for the dog and Gang Lu, made the essay a lot more cohesive as it connected Jo Ann’s personal life and issues to the murders in a dynamic way. Because she’s emotionally distant, it seems fit to have an outside focus for her emotions, both through the dog and her reflection on the stars. This focus on stars not only continues to distance her feelings from herself, it also relates to ideas of death and of plasma. This interconnection makes the essay as a whole rich due to the depth it inherently makes.
The essay reminded me a lot of “Of Mice and Men” as both have foreshadowing as a central aspect. “Of Mice and Men” also uses a dog to foreshadow in a similar way, as the death of Candy’s dog foreshadows Lenny’s death as dog foreshadows aspects of Gang Lu. There is also similar continued metaphors, as the plasma and the dream of the farm respectively represent central ideas.
Devin Byrd
The honest, unfocused detail is what makes this essay so immersive. If someone were to begin reading it without any foreknowledge of the tragedy, they might think it merely a random journal entry out of hundreds, detailing the everyday mundanities of one’s life. There is no foreseeable climax, no point the author is trying to make, or scene to be reached.
This style of writing perfectly illustrates the shock of such tragedies. The individuals within the narrative were living their own lives, each with their own struggles, relationships, and pursuits. Without warning, they were severed from the web of life, and countless connections were cut and left to waver and bleed. Reports with numbers and names fail to capture the full scope of impact after such events, but this essay effectively conveys the abruptness and sudden dose of pain, and how it flows into and through the lives of others like poison in the blood.
Zofia Sheesley
The tone and point of view is so charming and fun and poetic. It feels very lighthearted and optimistic even though there’s mention of “the vanished husband’s belongings” and squirrels living upstairs in a way that sounds like the attic. It’s a very childlike optimism that makes even the seemingly upsetting parts okay. The collie seems very old and hurting and in a slightly different tone, this would be an entirely different essay with a total opposite mood. “I can take almost anything at this point. For instance, that my vanished husband is neither here nor there; he’s reduced himself to a troubled voice on the telephone three or four times a day.mOr that the dog at the bottom of the stairs keeps having mild strokes, which cause her to tilt her head inquisitively and also to fall over.” These lines are sad, this paints a sad picture of a broken family and broken hearts but the tone throughout the essay doesn’t make this come across as heartbreaking. It sounds strong and proud and calm. The way she writes when it gets to the shooting feels like a stop motion movie, small movements creating a fast pace scene. The way she worked in details from the shooting, Chris’s confirmed death, the death of his mom, both very important things she had to go through and details that are important to the event worked in such small ways, like tiny movements in an altogether fast movie. I also really appreciated the way she incorporated juxtaposition between her and her husband throughout the whole essay, even on the day of the shooting, she mentions that he is having a party at his apartment. To go along with the previous examples of juxtaposition with the erratic phone messages and rolling stones t-shirts compared to her simple lifestyle and very neat and tidy seeming personality. This essay was perfect. It was moving and easy to follow and intriguing in so many ways, I couldn’t stop reading. I read parts outloud to my boyfriend because I thought he just HAD to hear them. I cried at the end of this essay, it was so beautifully written, the tone, the pace, the flow, all things I aspire to have in my writing someday.
Katherine Spencer
“The Fourth State of Matter” was a very captivating and beautifully written piece that had me wanting more the entire time. The imagery displayed in this was truly amazing to read and it left you feeling almost like you were there as it was happening. There was a few bits that were mildly confusing but I quickly got passed the confusions.
One specific scene that stood out to me as a big reader myself is when Jo Ann was talking about her old Border Collie, and how the poor animal was becoming too old to relieve itself. She explains what she is doing and does all of it in great, vivid detail. The line where she describes herself waiting in the cold doorway left me feeling like I was the one waiting instead of her. The cold air whistling and biting my skin. I swear felt the room get colder reading that. Her description of the events that unfold show her who she is as a person, caring and loving. She would go to many lengths to keep her old dog happy. It made me happy to read about the lengths she would go to for the dog but also sad at the same time, knowing that her dogs days are nearing the end.
Overall this was a very great piece and something I would recommend and would read again.
Corbin
I really enjoyed the whole piece. It was a very interesting read. I have never read anything like it before. It is definitely a unique writing style that I have not come across before.
Even though I read above that there was going to be a shooting, I didn’t see it coming. I thought when it came to it that Gang Lou was going to start and finish with just himself. Thinking back to the story, when Lou was counting how many had respect towards him, I can now see it how was foreshadowed.
A part that I thought was really well written was the shooting. It seemed like Beard described the whole process as it happened. There weren’t really any connecting pieces to it, but it wasn’t needed as well. She described each moment as it went to the next; boom, boom, boom, boom. As I read that part I started reading faster and faster going through it, visualizing each part as it happened. I am kind of curious about who Gang Lou didn’t check off his list. It seemed as if he got everyone that was described in the article.
Anna Johnson
This essay was beautifully written, it brought tears to my eyes. As I started to read it, as I got further and further along, I could not stop reading. I had to know where the story was going and what the point of it was. After finishing it, I saw how everything tied together. The fourth state of matter, the blood, the shooting, everything, is all connected smoothly in Beard’s writing.
The scenes that I loved reading the most was when she introduced her collie and got into how she takes care of her in her last times. I just have such a special place in my heart for dogs and in the last two years, our family has had to go through the loss of two childhood pets.
Specifically, the scene where she gets up in the middle of the night multiple times to let out her collie shows how much she loves her dog. It shows true love when she sleeps on the couch to be close to her collie to keep her comforted. When she washed loads and loads of blankets of pee, it shows character. The way she took care of her dog was very telling of who she was, that is why I loved the scenes of her collie.
I don’t really remember the last time I read a story and cried, I felt strong emotions through the writing of Beard and was extremely shocked to learn that this ended with a shooting. I actually had to read the scene multiple times to really understand that it was true. The author gave amazing detail to help me connect with the characters and the emotions she was feeling throughout the story. I just loved how everything tied together and her character development.