Ordinary People Term Essay After reading the book; Ordinary People and learning about all of the characters, I’d say I most closely resemble Conrad Jarrett. Conrad has experienced a lot and has faded relationships with people he used to have close relationships with. He lost his brother, tried to commit suicide, he has also been in and out of hospitals. A couple of these ways are similar to me. For example, in chapter 13, Conrad gets in a fight with his mom. Her name is Beth. Basically, he got in a fight with her because he felt like she didn’t care about stuff he does. It ends with a lot of yelling. In the past, I have gotten in fights with my mom which had a lot of yelling but it was over stupid stuff. I guess it relates in a way though. Another …show more content…
Conrad gets in a fight with Kevin Stillman. Conrad obviously won the fight but later on that evening, after he gets dinner he starts feeling bad over what he had done. He thinks to himself “Why are you always messing up?” “I didn’t mean to” “I didn’t mean to doesn’t mean anything.”. I haven’t been in a fight like that with someone but in past relationships I’ve been in, if there was a fight and it got bad I’d say a lot of stuff I didn’t mean and the girl would say stuff back but after it ended and we weren’t talking I’d feel bad about the stuff I said and regret saying it and it seemed like it always happened. Thinking back, Conrad isn’t the only character from the novel that I can relate to. The other character I can relate to is Beth, Conrad’s mother. She is really caring and try’s to have good relationships with everyone. She is super laid back too. She has experienced a lot in her past and just wants
People treated him much differently, and not in a positive way. This causes falling outs with his friends and eventually the point where Conrad notices if he wants to help himself, he needs to be around positive influences and not people who are only going to affect him negatively. They have also become two-faced friends who now talk about him behind his back, like when he overheard himself get called a “flake” in the locker room so he wasn’t invited to hangout with his friends. An example of how his friends were negative influences on him was when Kevin Stillman, a friend who drove to school in the morning with him everyday got into a fist fight with Conrad and lost.
Beth doesn’t let herself feel, she is a perfectionist, and cares about what people will think. I feel like I relate to Conrad in the depression part. Recently my parents got a divorce and that was hard for me, I started to feel depressed and it was hard to get up every morning and keep going knowing that every
" The thing is," she says, "we should both be careful about who we see. It isn't good for either of us to get down." (p. 57) Also, Conrad becomes interested in a girl, Jeanine who was new in Lake Forest. From the novel, we see, that they start very close and make a good pair by the end of the novel.
They even went to the Cabanash Country Sausage Festival together. Jessie soon realizes how nice it is to have friends and her feelings toward Conrad grow stronger. Conrad was starting to feel the same. Soon it was time for Conrad to go back to the Doctors and have his leg checked out.
In this case Conrad doesn’t have a mother to help him through life since his mother does not show any compassion towards him he has to learn to go through adolescent life without a strong motherly figure. This shows a lot of perseverance, because he doesn’t have his mother to turn to in these tough times. He is a kid having to go through this with one parent by his side. He seems to cope with it well, but sometimes you know when there is a moment in the book that a boy just needs his
Calvin used the word “tell me” and “trouble” to show that he was genuinely worried about Conrad’s health. All of this concern from Calvin helped Conrad communicate better, which in turn made him heal. Additionally, Conrad and Calvin continue to build onto their relationship. After Calvin told Conrad that Beth left for vacation,Conrad told Calvin that he wanted Calvin to be harder on him occasionally, like how Calvin was to Buck. Then Calvin responds with,"He needed it.
Next, you learn that he feels responsible for the death of his brother, and that's why he's suffered so much the past few years. ‘“For killing him, don't you know that?”’(223). Once Conrad calms down, Berger says to him that it was good he had a breakdown. ‘“Feeling is not selective, I keep telling you that”’ (227). Throughout the course of the sessions held, Berger talked to Conrad about feeling, and in the beginning of the book, he wasn't able to let himself feel
Beth suppresses the thought that her family has problems, and just wants to think of her family as a normal family. Calvin wants to be the positive character, when in reality, is being silent about his feelings of the incident. First of all, the film shows Conrad expressing examples of silence and violence towards the incident involving his brothers death. As shown in the film, in the past, Conrad had previously tried to commit suicide, because he felt guilty
Conrad’s stomach tightens. He needs no more enemies. He forced a laugh from the back of his throat..” (Guest 18). Conrad gave a fake laugh to please Stillman, so he wouldn’t get in a fight and ruin their friendship.
Karen and Conrad have bonded over their time in the mental hospital; Once they leave the hospital there is no real reason for them to keep in contact unless it is to just check up on one another. “The only one who can help you is you,” Karen tells Conrad this when they meet at a diner to catch up. Later Karen says that she needs to leave early because she has things to do but Conrad thinks that he did something to make her leave, he feels like he is always the one driving people away. This brings Conrad's confidence down significantly, he has trouble making friends let alone keeping them and when he finally had someone to talk to she left. As the novel continues Conrad gets worse and he can't seem to find a way out of his depressive episode until one day he read the newspaper; “Teenager committed suicide” Conrad instantly was overflowed with a wave of shock and guilt, he couldn't believe she had given in and let her thoughts overpower her.
Since Buck, Conrad’s brother, is dead, Conrad is feeling depressed seeing that the house is more empty now that Buck is gone. Conrad also shows deep depression in school when his teacher questions him asking, “Why are you writing all this about violence and war? Aren’t there other things you’d like to say, Conrad? This doesn’t sound like you.” (Guest 19).
Christianity, one of the world 's major religions, revolves around love and the importance of loving others. In The Bible mentions to Christians, "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Leviticus 19:18). Love is of utmost importance in Christianity. In this story, a boyfriend, who does not manifest love and is a hypocrite and a sinner, to his loving girlfriend who is carrying their future baby. The boyfriend, changes and transforms his views of himself throughout the short story.
He already lost a brother and that was already hard enough to cope with, let alone another close friend which he had very few of. Karen was a friend of Conrad in the hospital after his attempted suicide. They tried to keep in contact after both getting discharged but their only meet seemed to be brief and awkward. Conrad felt that it was a waste of time since Karen was focused on her school play rather than him. Conrad tried to contact her again but her parents blew him off.
After suggesting Conrad be a part of the next vacation, an argument erupted and he more or less discredited everything she said, further stressing the already minuscule emotional safety between the two. Other than a couple of other minor scenes, Calvin really did not display much management
He also begins to date a girl he met at band practice (Elizabeth McGovern), who is upbeat yet understanding and helps bring Conrad out of his shell. As the movie develops we learn that Conrad had made a close friend, Karen, when he was in the hospital. Over the course of the movie, he meets her for a coffee and together they decide to have a great Christmas. In the climax of the movie Conrad learns that Karen has committed suicide. This news breaks him down emotionally.