Ordinary People Reflection

“It would be comforting to have something to look up to. Instead, the walls are bare. They have been freshly painted pale blue. An anxious color. Anxiety is blue; failure, grey. He knows those shades.” This short phrase describes the anxiety level Conrad Jarrett has towards his self being. Throughout the novel there are not only many raw emotions from the protagonist himself, but many unprocessed despondencies from other main characters such as: Beth (Conrad’s mother), Calvin (Conrad’s father), and Jeannine (Conrad’s girlfriend). With the book and the movie Ordinary People, the effectiveness in telling the story of Conrad Jarrett there were many main elements that were not portrayed in the movie. The theme in this novel was in order to remain
I also recognized Calvin’s painful regret and sorrow towards his two sons. Not only was Calvin grieving towards the lost of his son Buck, but he blames himself for not following the signs leading to Conrad’s actions. Calvin use to view himself as a lucky man, but after his older son died in a boating accident he felt lost and wished the order and perfection would be restored in his family once again. I believe this similar connection between the novel and movie were important in understand the characters. For instance, the feelings and actions of Calvin and Conrad helped better understand the full thoughts and feelings of each individual character. Calvin feeling regretful for his two sons shows his attitude towards perfectionism. While Conrad just wants to “get the motions right,” and hope the rest falls into
Karen was one of Conrad’s friends while in the mental hospital. In the novel, he learns about Karen’s death while reading the newspaper. In the movie however, Conrad tries to call Karen and he finds out about her passing from her dad. Although Conrad finding out about Karen’s death was different the memories triggered by Karen’s passing were the same. Con had many recurring memories of Buck’s death, and through these memories the reader found out Conrad blames himself for his brothers death. While having these episodes Conrad called Dr. Berger to try to relieve some of his guilt. This scene was similar to both the book and movie because Conrad relieves all of the pain and guilt he built up side after Buck’s passing. The importance of this scene was to show Conrad’s recovery level had shifted tremendously. Conrad went from being an anxious teenager to a well rounded child. In conclusion the similarity and differences in the book were not too dramatic. Although some of the timing on certain events were off, the movie did not fail to get the main point across. The purpose of this novel was to tell the story of Conrad trying to redeem youth of innonces. The moral of this story was to show readers that even though bad things happen it doesn’t mean there is only one way out. Thus, creating an example though Conrad Jarrett