Ordinary People

“And what is fatherhood anyway? […] Looking for the signs. He knows what to look for now: loss of appetite, sleeplessness, poor school performance.”

Cal Jarrett, who thought he knew what it meant to be a father, finds himself questioning everything after Conrad Jarrett attempts suicide. He is constantly looking back on the past to see if there were signs he missed or if he could have done something differently to prevent it. Cal’s feeling that he missed signs of Conrad’s depression has led to endless worrying that something might happen to him again.

“His old self. That is the image that must be dispelled.”

The Jarrett family strives for some sense of normalcy following Buck’s death and Conrad’s attempted suicide. Cal struggles to accept that Conrad will never be quite the same person he was before these two tragedies. The theme of Grief and Its Many Forms is reinforced in this quote as Guest demonstrates a different kind of grieving: Conrad doesn’t have to literally die for his family to grieve the loss of who he was before the sailing accident.

“Growing up is serious business. He, Cal, would not be young again, not for anything. And not without sponsors: a mother and father, good fortune, God.”

Ordinary People is a coming-of-age story as much as it is an intense family drama. Growing up comes with its own difficulties, but Conrad faces even more as he comes of age in the wake of his brother’s death. In addition to introducing the coming-of-age aspect of the novel, this quote reminds readers how difficult Cal’s childhood was and why he is, in turn, so motivated to create a better experience for Conrad.

“Faughnan is a serious student of music; also, a perfectionist of the sternest sort, who cares about nobody, about nothing other than the music.”

Faughnan is a critical figure in Conrad’s life. Music is the only thing that makes Conrad feel free, but Faughnan’s perfectionism allows Conrad to channel his striving nature into something that brings him joy. Faughnan is one of the few characters in the book who doesn’t coddle or scold Conrad for how he has changed since Buck’s death. His class offers an escape: He only cares about how Conrad sings.

“It is like the hole in your mouth where a tooth was and you cannot keep your tongue from playing with it.”

The Jarrett family does their best to avoid talking about the traumatic events they have faced in the last two years. However, there are constant reminders of what they’ve lost, and they can’t help but let it seep into their everyday lives. This quote comes at the beginning of the novel, after Conrad’s first day back at school. After he spends the day with his friends (who were also friends with Buck), Conrad pulls out an old picture of them all standing together after winning a relay race.

“So, how do you stay open, when nobody mentions anything, when everybody is careful not to mention it?”

Communication while grieving is one of the major conflicts in Ordinary People. The family avoids discussing their pain with each other because they are afraid of opening old wounds, but this ends up causing more strain on their relationships.

“It was the closest thing to a father-son relationship-it was a father-son relationship, he thought.”

Cal, who grew up without a father figure, finds one in his mentor, Arnold Bacon. For years, Bacon took Cal under his wing and invested in his career and his future. The two were incredibly close, which made his abrupt departure from Cal’s life following his marriage to Beth even more painful. This mention of a father-son relationship draws a distinction between Bacon’s conditional support and the unconditional love Cal strives to provide as a father.

“Things were so different in the hospital. People were, you know, turned on all the time. And you just can’t live like that. You can’t live with all that emotion floating around, looking for a place to land. It’s too exhausting.”

When Conrad visits Karen in Skokie, he finds her much more closed off emotionally than she was at the hospital. She is trying to take care of her mental health on her own instead of seeking help from professionals or her friends. At the hospital, everyone’s emotions were at the surface. Afterward, Karen and Conrad both try to suppress their feelings. Dr. Berger helps Conrad find balance, allowing himself to feel his emotions as they come so he doesn’t erupt after holding them in too long.

“He has to get over this feeling of panic every time he leaves him alone in the house. He’s a big boy. He will be eighteen years old in January. Remember it.”

Part of Cal’s burden is the guilt of leaving Conrad alone in the moments leading up to his suicide attempt. His father-in-law sensed that something was wrong when they were in Florida and told him not to leave Conrad alone again. If he and Beth had not been home the day of the incident, Conrad would have died. Ever since, Cal is reluctant to leave Conrad alone. However, as everyone reminds him, he must learn to let go of control and let his son grow up; he must trust that Conrad is doing better.

“He must learn more control, cannot allow himself the luxury of anger.”

Throughout the novel, Conrad wants nothing more than to have more control over his life and emotions. Here, Conrad holds in his anger toward his classmates, doing his best to push it down and not allow himself to feel it. This is one of the coping mechanisms that Dr. Berger later exposes when he discusses Conrad’s tendency toward suppressing his feelings. In his attempt to control his emotions, Conrad has begun to avoid all feelings, both positive and negative.

“His whole life is in place and it spreads out around him, steady and full of purpose. A mystic source of energy, flooding his body, his mind, all at once. Joy.”

When Conrad makes a list of his personal goals and sets out to achieve them, he begins to feel truly alive for the first time in a long time. As he discovers his own identity instead of merely modeling his life after Buck’s, he is able to experience true joy.

“‘It says nobody’s normal,’ Ray says. ‘Nobody’s got it together, not anybody in this frigging world.’”

After facing such a tremendous amount of tragedy in their lives, the Jarrett family wants nothing more than to be seen as normal. What Ray tells Cal here is one of the novel’s chief ideas: There is no such thing as a “normal” family. Every family has their own problems, even the ones that seem to be perfect from the outside.

“Safety and order. Definitely the priorities of his life. He is not a man inclined toward risk. There. A definition at last. I’m a man who believes in safety.”

Cal, who until this point has been searching for the words to define him, finally settles on two: safety and order. His desire for safety and order drives him to stay on the metaphorical fence, where he feels he can’t be hurt by either Beth or Conrad if he refuses to choose between them. Later, he wonders if this need for safety kept him from straying toward infidelity after years of marriage.

“The withdrawal of friendship. That was what had crushed him. After five years of looking up to someone, of thinking of him as a father.”

Cal’s first experience with loss came with the end of his relationship with Arnold Bacon, his mentor, friend, and father figure. Bacon treated Cal as if he were dispensable, which led to Cal’s insecurities about not being needed as a father and as a husband. He made it his duty to not fail Conrad the way he was failed by Bacon. No matter what, Cal wants Conrad to know that he cares.

“Since last night—no, before last night—it is as if he knew it all along. He is strong, he is able, because he is.”

Conrad eventually finds the strength that has always been within him. His visits with Dr. Berger and his relationship with Jeanine both give him a new perspective on life, and he blossoms as he finds his own identity at last. Grief comes in waves, but he is able to feel the good that comes with memories now, as well as the bad.

“No. You do not slash yourself in a dozen places if you are merely trying to die. Nor do you overlook the full bottle of Valium beside the razor blades in the medicine chest. […] Too easy. And too neat.”

In a newspaper article about Conrad’s suicide attempt, a police chief was quoted, asking why Conrad wanted to hurt himself the way he did. When Dr. Crawford shows Conrad the article, Conrad says he wanted to die, not hurt himself. Later, Conrad starts to question his motives. Dr. Berger eventually suggests that the act was subconsciously aimed at his mother, an attempt to force her to show him the love he craves from her. Beth, too, is convinced that this was intended for her and that he made it as messy as he could just to upset her. 

“Geez, if I could get through to you, kiddo, that depression is not sobbing and crying and giving vent, it is plain and simple reduction of feeling. […] People who keep stiff upper lips find that it’s damn hard to smile.”

In each of their sessions, Dr. Berger tries to get Conrad to open up about his feelings: anger, sadness, joy, and fear. For the most part, Conrad pushes down all of these, leaving him numb to all feelings. This, Dr. Berger suggests, is the terribly wrong thing that keeps haunting Conrad. If he won’t allow himself to feel pain, he is denying himself the ability to feel happiness, too.

“For so long he has shielded himself from hurt, not letting it be inflicted upon him. Suddenly he is naked, unprotected, and the air is full of flying glass. All his senses are raw, open to wounding.”

When Conrad lets down his walls for the first time, the feeling of pain is almost overwhelming. It is a terrifying but necessary sensation if he is to heal. He finally lets himself properly grieve for his brother, Karen, and the year that he lost while he was in the hospital and away from his friends.

“Bad judgement doesn’t make you evil—can he only see those two opposites—good and evil? Innocence and guilt?”

One of the major themes that Guest tackles in Ordinary People is that grief is not binary: It operates in shades of gray. There are multiple sides to each story, but at the end of the day, some things happen that aren’t anyone’s fault. Sometimes, the Jarrett family learns, things just happen. There is no explanation or anyone to blame.

“Tears of grief this time. Not fair not fair! no, but life is not fair always, or sane, or good, or anything. It just is.”

The Jarrett family searches in vain for reasons Buck died and for justice. The same applies to Karen’s death: It doesn’t feel fair. Conrad and his parents must come to terms with life not always being perfect or fair. By allowing himself to feel grief for his loss instead of trying to subdue his feelings or find logical reasons for tragedies, Conrad finally finds freedom.

“Hate him? How could I hate him? Mothers don’t hate their sons! I don’t hate him! But he makes demands on me! He tries to blackmail me!”

For most of the book, Conrad is convinced that Beth hates him and that she doesn’t care what he does or doesn’t do. Her constant need for perfection and cleanliness is mistaken for hatred. As Dr. Berger points out, she loves Conrad as much as she is capable of loving him. Though Conrad still questions her, he learns to give her more grace by the end of the book when he finds the box of cards that he and Buck made for her all those years ago. She wouldn’t have saved those childhood scribblings if she didn’t care at all, and Conrad is learning to look for similar gestures that reveal Beth’s love for him.

“That second time. There had been no apology. A bloody, vicious thing. It hasn’t killed her, but it has done something to her; something terrible.”

During one of the arguments between Beth and Cal, Beth blurts out that she believes Conrad attempted suicide to punish her. Though Cal tells her that isn’t true, he recalls that Conrad apologized when Buck died but did not do so after he attempted suicide. Beth and Conrad are equally unmoving when it comes to communicating with each other: They refuse to talk about it. This allows those feelings to fester inside each of them, leaving them alone with their thoughts and assumptions about each other.

“Two intelligent people, why can’t they understand each other? Why can’t they work out their differences?”

After over two decades of marriage, Beth leaves Cal indefinitely. Their different grieving processes have proven incompatible to the point of harming each other. While Beth and Conrad start the book by grieving in similar ways, Conrad learns from Dr. Berger that allowing himself to feel emotions is the only way to start healing. Beth, meanwhile, ends the book the way she started, refusing to talk about how she feels with anyone. Her choice to continue to grieve on her own and not communicate with her family ultimately leads to her leaving the family.