The Problems of Ordinary People Ordinary People by Judith Guest is the story of a dysfunctional family who relate to one another through a series of extensive defense mechanisms, i.e. an unconscious process whereby reality is distorted to reduce or prevent anxiety. The book opens with seventeen year old Conrad, son of upper middle- class Beth and Calvin Jarrett, home after eight months in a psychiatric hospital, there because he had attempted suicide by slashing his wrists. His mother is a meticulously orderly person who, Jared, through projection, feels despises him. She does all the right things; attending to Jared's physical needs, keeping a spotless home, plays golf and bridge with other women in her social circle, but, in her own words "is an emotional cripple". Jared's father, raised in an orphanage, seems anxious to please everyone, a commonplace reaction of individuals who, as children, experienced parental indifference or inconsistency. Though a successful tax attorney, he is jumpy around Conrad, and, according to his wife, drinks too many martinis. Conrad seems consumed with despair. A return to normalcy, school and home-life, appear to be more than Conrad can handle. Chalk-faced, hair-hacked Conrad seems bent on perpetuating the family myth that all is well in the world. His family, after all, "are people of good taste. They do not discuss a problem in the face of the problem. And, besides, there is no problem." Yet, there is not one problem in this family but two - Conrad's suicide and the death by drowning of Conrad's older brother, Buck. Conrad eventually contacts a psychiatrist, Dr. Berger, because he feels the "air is full of flying glass" and wants to feel in control. Their initial sessions together frustrate the psychiatrist because of Conrad's inability to express his feelings. Berger cajoles him into expressing his emotions by saying, "That's what happens when you bury this junk, kiddo. It keeps resurfacing. Won't leave you alone." Conrad's slow but steady journey towards healing seems partially the result of cathartic revelations which purge guilt feelings regarding his brother's death and his family's denial of that death, plus the "love of a good woman. Jeannine, who sings soprano to Conrad's tenor..." There is no doubt that Conrad is consumed with guilt, "the feeling one has when one acts contrary to a role he has assumed while interacting with a significant person in his life," This guilt engenders in Conrad feelings of low self esteem. Survivors of horrible tragedies, such as the Holocaust, frequently express similar feelings of worthlessness. In his book, "Against All Odds", William Helmreich relates how one survivor articulates a feeling of abandonment. "Did I abandon them, or did they abandon me?" Conrad expresses a similar thought in remembering the sequence of events when the sailboat they were on turned over. Buck soothes Conrad saying, "Okay, okay. They'll be looking now, for sure, just hang on, don't get tired, promise? In an imagined conversation with his dead brother, Conrad asks, "'Man, why'd you let go?' 'Because I got tired.' 'The hell! You never get tired, not before me, you don't! You tell me not to get tired, you tell me to hang on, and then you let go!' 'I couldn't help it. Well, screw you, then!'" Conrad feels terrible anger with his brother, but cannot comfortably express that anger. His psychiatrist, after needling Conrad, asks, "Are you mad?" When Conrad responds that he is not mad, the psychiatrist says, "Now that is a lie. You are mad as hell." Conrad asserts that, "When you let yourself feel, all you feel is lousy." When his psychiatrist questions him about his relationship with his mother, Calvin says, "My mother and I do not connect. Why should it bother me? My mother is a very private person." This sort of response is called, in psychological literature, "rationalization". We see Conrad's anger and aggression is displaced, i.e. vented on another, as when he physically attacked a schoolmate. Yet, he also turns his anger on himself and expresses in extreme and dangerous depression and guilt. "Guilt is a normal emotion felt by most people, but among survivors it takes on special meaning. Most feel guilty about the death of loved ones whom they feel they could have, or should have, saved. Some feel guilty about situations in which they behaved selfishly (Conrad held on to the boat even after his brother let go), even if there was no other way to survive. In answer to a query from his psychiatrist on when he last got really mad, Conrad responds, "When it comes, there's always too much of it. I don't know how to handle it." When Conrad is finally able to express his anger, Berger, the psychiatrist says to Calvin, "Razoring is anger; self-mutilation is anger. So this is a good sign; turning his anger outward at last." Because his family, and especially his mother, frowns upon public displays of emotion, Conrad keeps his feelings bottled up, which further contributes to depression. Encyclopedia Britannica, in explicating the dynamics of depression states, "Upon close study, the attacks on the self are revealed to be unconscious expressions of disappointment and anger toward another person, or even a circumstance..., deflected from their real direction onto the self. The aggression, therefore, directed toward the outside world is turned against the self." The article further asserts that, "There are three cardinal psychodynamic considerations in depression: (1) a deep sense of loss of what is loved or valued, which may be a person, a thing or even liberty; (2) a conflict of mixed feelings of love and hatred toward what is loved or highly valued; (3) a heightened overcritical concern with the self." Conrad's parents are also busily engaged in the business of denial. Calvin, Conrad's father, says, "Don't worry. Everything is all right. By his own admission, he drinks too much, "because drinking helps..., deadening the pain". Calvin cannot tolerate conflict. Things must go smoothly. "Everything is jello and pudding with you, Dad." Calvin, the orphan says, "Grief is ugly. It is something to be afraid of, to get rid of". "Safety and order. Definitely the priorities of his life. He constantly questions himself as to whether or not he is a good father. "What is fatherhood, anyway?" Beth, Conrad's mother, is very self-possessed. She appears to have a highly developed super-ego, that part of an individual's personality which is "moralistic..., meeting the demands of social convention, which can be irrational in requiring certain behaviors in spite of reason, convenience and common sense". She is furthermore, a perfectionist. "Everything had to be perfect, never mind the impossible hardship it worked on her, on them all." Conrad is not unlike his mother. He is an overachiever, an "A" student, on the swim team and a list-maker. His father tells the psychiatrist, "I see her not being able to forgive him. For surviving, maybe. No, that's not it, for being too much like her." A psychoanalyst might call her anal retentive. Someone who is "fixated symbolically in orderliness and a tendency toward perfectionism". "Excessive self-control, not expressing feelings, guards against anxiety by controlling any expression of emotion and denying emotional investment in a thing or person. "She had not cried at the funeral.... She and Conrad had been strong and calm throughout." The message of the book is contained in Berger's glib saying that, "People who keep stiff upper lips find that it's damn hard to smile". We see Conrad moving toward recovery and the successful management of his stage of development, as articulated by Erikson, "intimacy vs. isolation". At story end, his father is more open with Conrad, moving closer to him, while his mother goes off on her own to work out her issues. Both trying to realize congruence in their development stage (Erikson), "ego integrity vs. despair".
control, it is the fact that they go out there for the soul reason to
Perfection is an unattainable characteristic. Many things might look golden and perfect on the outside while on the inside it could be crumbling and rotting. A big idea that many characters struggle with is perfection. Many characters in the novel Ordinary people by Judith Guest Strive for perfection in one way or another. One character that significantly struggles with the necessity of perfection throughout the novel is Beth. Throughout the beginning of the story it is easy to see Beth's obsession with the perfect appearance of her family. However things aren't always as they appear. At the end of the novel the reader witnesses the destruction of the perfect family.
...ld have been furious. But he stayed calm and by doing that Conrad could trust him and knew he was a good person. The third piece of evidence is when Conrad wouldn’t tell Dr. Berger anything about himself, he didn't scream at him saying you're wasting your money or anything like that. He opened him up with techniques and stayed calm. Conrad wouldn't tell Dr. Berger much. He kind of just painted a vivid picture in Dr. Berger’s head. But dr. Berger didn’t get frustrated he kept working at Conrad calmly and soon saw the picture in HD. So By Dr. Berger stays calm at all times made Conrad feel safer and better, faster even when Conrad would scream and swear at Conrad Dr. Berger stayed calm and content. In conclusion Dr. Berger helped Conrad and Calvin a lot by treating them as family, Dr. Berger being there for him at all times, and Dr. Berger staying calm at all times.
Conrad Jarret is an eighteen years old white male who live with his parent’s Beth and Calvin Jarret in an upper middle class suburban in Chicago Illinois. He is a high school junior also part of the swim team. Within the Jarret family, Beth, Conrad and Calvin all have different problems. Beth is a perfectionist who is unaccustomed with tragedy. Conrad pursuit to find himself, while trying to please the people around him, his father Calvin is cautious about his son and his feelings. Conrad 's mother refuses to forgive him for his suicide attempt, she believes he did it in order to destroy her perfectly ordered life.
At first Conrad did not know who he was or what his purpose was, when he came home form the hospital. Con had no sense of direction because at the hospital there was an everyday routine that he got used to. When he came home he made up his own routine in the beginning. He tried to go back to what every thing was like before his decsion. But he was unable to. He was trying to take one day at time. One thing was true though "Things were so different at the hospital. People were, you know, turned on all the time. And u just cannot live like that. You cannot live with all that emotion floating around, looking for a place to land. It is do exhausting (55, Guest)." This quote is trying to say that at the hospital people were like machines. The staff told them what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Outside the hospital you get to make your own choices.
After coming out of the hospital, Conrad is forced to relearn how to deal with every day situations. Learning how to establish routines and manage his own life is Conrad's first step on his way to recovery and self-discovery. Beth deals with Conrad's suicide attempt in a very different way, she is very enclosed and in a constant state of denial. This is just the first of many actions until she reveals her true colors. "Will you talk to him this morning? About the clothes. He's got a closet full of decent things and he goes off every day looking like a bum, Cal" (7).
Conrad and his father, Calvin, had a very good and strong trusting relationship. Although Conrad was stubborn and didn't want to speak of his
In one instance, when Conrad is on the phone with Dr. Berger at school, Conrad has periods of silence where Dr. Berger thinks he has hung up on him. This is probably due to the fact that Conrad knows there is a problem with himself, however, he is unwilling to get help for himself; therefore, making him unsure of himself when he is talking to Dr. Berger. In another instance, Conrad loses his temper on his parents when his father is trying to take a picture of himself and his mother. Conrad is resentful towards his mother for not loving him enough, and as a result, is reluctant to take a picture with her. So when his father insists, Conrad yells and curses at his father, redirecting the anger away from his mother. Conrad’s favorite most often used conflict management strategy is contrasting. Contrasting is differing from, be at variance with, be contrary to, to conflict with, go against, be at odds with, be in opposition to, disagree with, clash
It is common for those experiencing grief to deny the death altogether. Many people do this by avoiding situations and places that remind them of the deceased (Leming & Dickinson, 2016). However, by simply avoiding the topic of death and pain, the mourner only achieves temporary relief while in turn creating more permanent lasting agony (Rich, 2005). In this stage, mourners will begin to feel the full weight of the circumstance. Whether the death of a loved one was sudden or long-term, survivors will feel a full range of emotions, such as sadness, guilt, anger, frustration, hopelessness, or grief. While many of these emotions can cause serious suffering, it is important for the survivor to feel whatever emotions come up and deal with those feelings, rather than trying to suppress any
The point of my observations should be quite clear by now, namely that Joseph Conrad
Hay, Eloise Knapp. The Political Novels of Joseph Conrad: a Critical Study. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1972. 120. Print.
In the film and the novel, the point of view of the narrator is very important to the reader's respectively to the viewer's perception of him. Joseph Conrad builds his novel as a story which is t...
Joseph Conrad’s innovative literature is influenced by his experiences in traveling to foreign countries around the world. Conrad’s literature consists of the various styles of techniques he uses to display his well-recognized work as British literature. "His prose style, varying from eloquently sensuous to bare and astringent, keeps the reader in constant touch with a mature, truth-seeking, creative mind" (Hutchinson 1). Conrad’s novels are basically based on having both a psychological and sociological plot within them. This is why Conrad’s work carries its own uniqueness from other novels when being compared to his.
Mobile banking provides many advantages to banks such as improving service quality, improving customer retention, extending their customers reach, enhancing operational efficiency, requires little or no infrastructure and reducing costs (Shaikh, 2013; Khraim et al., 2011), and it also provides many advantages to customers such as instant connectivity, reducing the risk of carrying cash, access to banking services anytime and anywhere without temporal and spatial constraints , doing banking operations in an appropriate manner remotely (Darsow & Listwan, 2012).
E-banking is the name that signifies and encompasses the entire sphere of technology initiatives that have taken place in the banking industry. E-banking is a propriotory term making use of electronic channels through mobile phones,elephone, internet etc. for delivery of banking services and products. The concept and scope of e-banking is still in the transitional and progressive stage. It increases efficiency in the sphere of effective payment and accounting system thereby enhancing and improving the pace of delivery of banking services substantially and considerably. It allows customers to access banking services electronically through different mediums such as to pay bills, transfer funds, view accounts or to obtain any banking information and advice. E-banking also facilitates and avillieates new relationships with customers, regulatory authorities, suppliers and banking partners with digital-age tools. For example, customers and bank relationships will become more personalized and effective, resulting in new modes of transact...