Conrad Jarret In Judith Guest's Ordinary People

Conrad Jarret, from Judith Guest’s Ordinary People, expresses his insecurity and tense personality through the rough situations he had to encounter in his life. Conrad Jarret, from Judith Guest’s Ordinary People, expresses a tense attitude towards his family and friends. First, Conrad gets into a fight with his friend Kevin Stillman. In this quote Conrad shows how he feels causing him to fight against Stillman, “Something explodes inside his head, the sound shattering the parking lot, the red brick wall of building behind him, the white doors, gray cement – all dissolving into broken bits of color, heading swiftly toward him as he slams his fist, hard against that face.” (Guest, 179) Conrad’s emotions causing the fight show his tense personality

First, Conrad lost his brother to a boating accident and then Conrad felt as if he needed to replace his brother’s role in life. “The justice, obviously, is for the not-so-perfect kid to become that other, perfect kid. For everybody. For his parents and his grandparents, his friends, and, most of all, himself. Only, that is one hell of a burden, see? So, finally, he decides he can’t carry it. But how to set it down? No way. A problem without a solution. And so, because he can’t figure out how to solve the problem he decides to destroy it” (Guest, 224) Conrad Jarrett blames himself for not saving his brother from drowning in the water next to the sailboat. Conrad meets with Dr. Berger in this quote to talk about trying to be himself and not his brother. Because of Conrad’s loss of his brother, Conrad shows his insecurity because he feels the need to fulfill his brother’s shoes. Conrad takes the blame for not saving his brother Buck, which causes him to feel insecure about who he has become and the mistakes he made. Second, Conrad feels insecure about how looks on the first day back to school after his suicide attempt. In the start of Ordinary People, Conrad starts recovering from the hospital and his suicide attempt. “His, face, is plagued with a weird, constantly erupting rash. This is not acne, the assured him, what it was, they were never able to discover. Typical. He tries to be patient as he waits for his hair to grow out. He had hacked it up badly, cutting it himself the week before he left.” (Guest, 3) Conrad here explains his insecurities about how he looks going back to school. Conrad looks at himself in the mirror and realizes how much he has changed since before his incident. Because of the way Conrad looks he feels insecure about his actions towards others. Conrad notices a rash on his face and he does not have that much hair from when he