Ordinary People Death Theme

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The Long Weary Road; What Comes After a Loss Death is amongst one of the greatest tragedies that one can experience; when it occurs within a family, the family dynamics are altered forever. This is a recurring and significant theme in Judith Guest’s novel Ordinary People. Centered around the Jarret’s, a strained family in the midwest, Guest explores the detrimental effects that the death of Jordan Jarret, beloved son and brother, had on the remaining members of the Jarret family. The mother, Beth Jarret, plays a significant role in what followed after Jordan’s death. Beth destroyed the family by becoming completely isolated from her family; essentially ignoring her husband and son. The troubling period of time that Conrad went through after …show more content…

It travels back and forth several times in the book as Calvin goes through stages where he loves her more than anything and then other stages where he gets very frustrated with her and her selfish behaviors. A significant expression of this frustration is when Calvin and Beth argue over their vacation plans. In this situation, Beth was disregarding Conrad’s needs and Calvin's concerns and only thinking about what she wanted. Calvin then begins to show his anger when he comments to himself that “Self-possessed is what she [Beth] is...” (Guest 26). To add onto the previous idea about Calvin’s stages of emotions; I noticed that the negative emotions towards Beth become more frequent and intense as the novel progresses up until the point where Beth leaves. In comparison to the end of Ordinary People, the beginning starts off with Calvin always being overwhelmingly in love with Beth and seeing no faults in her. He describes his undeniable admiration of Beth: “Beautiful hair, the color of maple sugar. Or honey. Natural, too. The blue silk robe outlines her slender hips, her breasts (Guest 6). Guest hints at the possible weak and superficial relationship between Beth and Calvin in this fragment of Calvin thinking to himself. The superficiality is indirectly referenced by the fact that Calvin does not mention or notice one thing about Beth’s personality, but rather it is all focused on physical characteristics. This is subtle foreshadowing of the later downfall of this seemingly perfect

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