Jo Ann Beard's Boys of My Youth - Free Sample Essay

This free essay was written for a college creative writing class. This sample craft analysis essay examines the writing of Jo Ann Beard in The Boys of My Youth, specifically the story titled "The Fourth State of Matter." The essay shows how Beard's unique sentence structure conveys complicated emotions in a succinct, creative way. Written for a college sophomore English class, this essay would be a good reference for a student who wants to do an in-depth analysis of an author's craft.

Exposing emotional nuance: The language of Jo Ann Beard

In "The Fourth State of Matter," Jo Ann Beard tackles a variety of emotions from weariness to terror. But unlike authors who address their feelings directly with phrases like "I'm scared" or "I'm disappointed," Beard substitutes these with passages that rely on actions, allowing the reader to interpret the feelings beneath. Beard's choice of phrases and sentence structure give "The Fourth State of Matter" a sense of realism - Beard liberates emotional states like sadness and exhaustion by attaching them to actions. Analyzing Beard's language concerning Jo Ann's collie, her husband and the shootings, reveals how vague emotions like terror and disappointment manifest in real life.

Beard uses cumulative, or flowing, sentences to describe her narrator's wearied, but ultimately loving relationship with the dying collie. These sentences are often part of longer descriptive passages that reflect the narrator's self-sacrifice. For the narrator, Jo Ann, love is taking soaked blankets to the dryer and back - "In retraining her I've somehow retrained myself, bustling, cheerfully down to the basement, arms drenched in urine, the task of doing load after load of laundry strangely satisfying" (Beard 76) she writes. This emotionally packed sentence gives the reader a glimpse into Jo Ann's emotional state - the commas let the reader bustles along with Jo Ann as she goes through her wash routine. One can tell the work tires Jo Ann, who washes "load after load," (76) but Beard excludes words that suggest her narrator resents caring for the collie this way. In fact, Jo Ann's sacrifice is fitting, given the joy shared between owner and collie before: "We used to play a game called Maserati, where I'd grab her nose like a gearshift and put her through all the gears, first second third fourth, until we were going a hundred miles an hour through town. She thought it was funny," (87) Jo Ann recalls. The reader gets a sense of the narrator's previous relationship with the dog - she acts as playmate, not caretaker. Placing no commas between the gear numbers gives the sentence a rushed feeling, so the reader feels the excitement involved in the game. Beard does not have Jo Ann say, "I had fun playing this game," but the action of the sentence allows one to immerse in the implicit emotion. The sheer length of the passages involving the collie takes the reader to the heart of Jo Ann's feelings - her love for the dog is so overwhelming she cannot express it in simple words. It is a strong, lasting relationship, so much so the thought of losing the collie leaves her to do what she can to make it comfortable.

In contrast to the descriptions of the collie, Beard exposes the narrator's perception towards her husband through short passages in a heartbroken tone. Jo Ann does not explicitly say she is separated from her husband, instead she calls him the "vanished husband" who has "reduced himself to a troubled voice on the telephone three or four times a week" (75). The portrayal is flat and unappealing - little positive emotion remains for the man. Perhaps during a happier time in her marriage, Jo Ann would have spouted long, flowing rhapsodies for the man, but now the vanished husband is "neither here nor there," (75) taking up a few lines on the page. The lone passage that talks at length about the husband tells the reader he's left behind negative images: "statistics textbooks that still harbor an air of desperation, smarmy suitcoats from Goodwill" and "various old Halloween masks," (76) imply the man was unsure of his identity. His new apartment reinforces this pathetic image: it is dank and little with a "rickety dresser" and a new package of condoms (82). Yet Jo Ann is stuck in heartbreak mode - while she hopes that "things could turn around at any moment" (76), the husband's terse messages - "Click, dial and rewind" (78) she describes them - make her "leaping heart [settle] back into its hole in [her] chest" (79). Beard does not need to tell the reader that Jo Ann's husband keeps breaking her heart - the short passages allow one to experience her emotion in the moment. With few words, the author explains how the love, like the husband, has vanished from the marriage, leaving Jo Ann an empty woman with tattered feelings.

On the other side of the emotional spectrum, Beard uses fragments and choppy passages to examine the terror attached to the University of Iowa killings. These short, often one word sentences, as opposed to the longer, reflective passages about the collie, or the slim husband lines, emphasize the confusion and fear experienced by the victims as well as Jo-Ann's reactions. She first uses the fragments to heighten the reader's fear of what is to come. Gang Lu stalks his prey, analyzing the situation with phrases like, "He is. The door is open" (89). She then uses fragments to indicate the suddenness of death - "Bob looks up. The third bullet in the right hand, the fourth in the chest. Smoke (89). The choppy sentences pile up as the carnage continues - "A slumping. More smoke and ringing. . . . Everything is broken and red . . . Is disoriented suddenly . . . Places the barrel against his right temple. Fires" (90). These simple sentences when placed together force the reader to absorb every horrifying moment - there are no commas to help speed one through gruesome details. Jo Ann's reactions are also fragmented: "Gang Lu. Lone gunman. Before I have a chance to absorb that [the announcer] says, The dead are. Chris's picture. Oh, no, oh God" (93). Like the reader, Jo Ann processes the deaths abruptly, with little time to think. This barrage of fragments is more effective than having Jo Ann tell the reader she was terrified. By exposing the reader to the shootings with few descriptors, Beard prevents the reader from feeling safe and removed -fear felt by the victims and Jo Ann grips and threatens the reader as well.

Varying her syntax allows Beard to draw the reader into "The Fourth State of Matter" and connect one to the complex characters and emotions in the piece. In a brief 22 pages, the reader runs the emotional gamut with Jo Ann - weariness, heartbreak, terror, sadness. Beard's language turns the reader into a character as well, conflicted and emotional like Jo Ann, but eager to see how the story concludes.

Works Cited