Similarities Between Ordinary People And Inferno

In Judith Guest´s Ordinary People and Dante Alighieri's Inferno, the main characters Conrad and Dante face very different challenges, but their responses to the situations show similar effects on them. In the stories, neither Conrad nor Dante reach their ideal state, but that does not mean they did not experience success. Although Conrad and Dante reach different forms of success, or achievements in personal goals, they both begin to reach it by accepting their emotions, the most prominent one being anger.

Anger is not as simple as it may seem, as it is experienced by people in different forms and expressed in unique ways. As no two people are the same, one's response to the feeling is not the same for every person. Conrad for example, does not like the feeling of being angry and chooses to hold it back in situations in which he is experiencing it. He believes that "Sometimes when you let yourself feel, all you feel is lousy" (Guest 100). Conrad does not like to get angry because he is afraid of how he'll feel afterwards. His psychiatrist, Doctor Berger, however, believes that "Maybe you gotta feel lousy sometime, in order to feel better" (Guest 100). He thinks

that Conrad needs to let out his feelings more, so he can understand them and know how to handle them. Conrad had kept in so much anger about his attempted suicide, his brother's suicide, and his mother that when he let it out, it was as if a volcano erupted.

Conrad decided that for him to be successful about being in control of his life, he needed to quit the swim team, as it was becoming too much for him to handle, but he had not told his mother. The two got into a heated argument over the topic, resulting in both Beth and Conrad releasing a lot of pent up anger. In Youkhabeh Mohammadian's article, "Investigating the Role of Interpersonal Sensitivity, Anger, and Perfectionism in Social Anxiety", Mohammadian says people with a social anxiety disorder, such as Conrad, " experience and express anger, possibly more without a trigger or stimulating: express their anger when they are criticized by others, and the possibility of anger suppression is higher among them." He bottled up his anger and suppressed it so much that it came to a point where he began isolating himself from friends and family rather than dealing with it, which is incredibly unhealthy, especially for someone who wants control over their life again. As Conrad tells Berger about the fight, he finally begins to express his anger towards his mother, and Berger realizes that Conrad is not only angry at himself for thinking he's a terrible kid, but also because his mother is not capable of loving him the way he needs. Also, he has not forgiven himself for not dying when his brother Bucky, whom Conrad believed to be better than him in every way, did.

By releasing the anger that Conrad held in, he was finally able to figure out what he was feeling and why he was feeling it. Conrad believed that his brother Bucky was the perfect child and better than him at everything, even being a better son to their parents. He believed he could not fill Bucky's shoes, and blamed himself for everything bad that happened to his family, even Bucky's suicide. This anger that Conrad felt was normal, and finally expressing it was a step in the right direction for him and his own success. In Nicholas Roes' article, "When Anger Complicates Recovery", he discusses that therapist Reneau Peurifoy believes "there are times when our anger empowers us to act in our own best interests." This is true for Conrad because after he finally released and accepted his anger, he was able to begin his process for control, which is extremely successful. Although it may not seem like he was successful because he still had problems at the end of the story, that does not lessen his success of regaining control over himself again. Dante's goal was not the same as Conrad's, but the concept of what had to happen to achieve it was.

When Dante begins his journey in Hell with Virgil he is very sympathetic to the lower level sins, but as the sins begin to increase in severity, Dante begins to detest more and more.

For Dante to become as righteous as Virgil wants him to be, so Dante can be received by God, he is to cast away all sins. By doing so, he must fully reject them and show hatred towards any sins and those who sin. So, when Dante meets his old enemy Philippo Argenti in Canto 8, he wishes to Virgil that Argenti have further punishing saying, "My Master, much should I be pleased, / If I could see him soused into this broth, / Before we issue forth out of the lake." (Alighieri) When he says this, Virgil praises his comment and tells him that it will be done, as other sinners in the circle of the wrathful begin to chew at

him.

Applicable to today's society as well as the time in which Dante Alighieri writes the Inferno, Susan Blow mentions in her article, "Dante's 'Inferno'", "We live in an age which is rapidly losing the consciousness of sin," and this story is meant to remind people to be conscious of their daily lives and be sure they do not go against God by sinning. It seems strange for a Christian to wish pain and suffering on someone to be allowed into Heaven, but in Dante's Inferno, Virgil tells Dante he needs to hate everything to do with sinning, which includes those that have sinned. Emily McRae discusses a moral anger in her article "Metabolizing Anger: a Tantric Buddhist Solution to the Problem of Moral Anger" saying, "anger is usually bad except when directed at actual wrongdoing or injustice, in which case anger is good or even required, but at the very least permissible." Dante used this anger in a way that aligned with what he believed to be morally right so he could take revenge on Argenti for banishing him and so he could get closer to his goal of being righteous enough for God.

If he had not released his anger onto Argenti, it may have taken much longer for Dante to stop pitying the sinners and start believing that all sins are beneath him, so he could be accepted in Heaven. Due to Dante accepting his anger and putting sinners beneath him, he was successful in traveling through the treacherous circles of Hell. Although in the Inferno Dante had not completed his entire journey, he completed the most challenging part of it, showing how successful he was by not giving in to sins and escaping the Devil in order to take his place with God in Heaven.

Although Dante and Conrad had very different goals, they both had to accept their anger and realize how it helped them become successful. Dante's anger allowed him to realize that sinners are beneath him and how by refusing them he would be righteous and be welcomed into Heaven. Conrad's anger allowed him to realize that he was not to blame for his brother's death and that he must be himself, not try and be his brother. Anger does not automatically lead to someone being unsuccessful, it is what people choose to do when they accept the feeling that proves how successful they will be.