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Metaphor
Explanation and Analysis—Hampden as a Petrie Dish:
When the students at Hampden College learn of Bunny's death, mass hysteria arises. With a metaphor, Richard compares the state of the college to a Petrie dish:
Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally believed to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black Petrie dish of melodrama and distortion.
In comparing Hampden to a Petrie dish, Richard suggests that the college is full of dramatic students—much like Bunny and his own histrionics—who become enthralled and excited by any event that draws them out of their Vermont bubble. Because of the campus’s isolation from the rest of the world, it is comparable to an isolated dish full of organisms whose behavior scientists attempt to understand.
In the same way that the contents of a Petrie dish can join and grow, so too can the students of Hampden thrive and build upon each other, especially in terms of fear. It is a small enough college that news travels fast; one person’s news almost instantly becomes another person's gossip. Like a Petrie dish, Hampden is airtight, so any type of news, particularly tragic news, becomes hysteria.
Such a scientific metaphor also emphasizes the strangeness of the students at Hampden College and how different they are from people Richard knew in California. This comparison implies that Richard views the students at Hampden as specimens that he wants to understand. Richard wants more than anything to be accepted by his peers and to blend in with the East Coast crowd.
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