What Is The Dysfunctional Family In The Movie Ordinary People

In the Academy Award winning film Ordinary People, is about a highly dysfunctional family, the Jarrett family. This family consists of Beth Jarrett, Calvin Jarrett, and Conrad Jarrett; all of whom are highly dysfunctional. Conrad tried to commit suicide after the death of his older brother, Buck. Conrad lives through the accident, however, Buck dies. Conrad feels guilty for having survived. Beth and Calvin are distraught over the death of Buck, but are glad that Conrad lives. Beth, however, favors Buck and becomes angry with Conrad that he tried to kill himself. Calvin tries to help Conrad out all he can by attempting to talk to him. Had the Jarretts talked out their problems freely to each other, divorce could have likely been avoided. Had the Jarretts used more of conflict management strategies, such as: Contrasting, Creating Safety, STATE, and AMMP, they would have felt more secure about their relationships with each other.

Generally, Conrad and Beth fight the most throughout the movie; near the ending however, Calvin and Beth begin to fight often over Beth’s views toward Conrad. Had Conrad and Beth used conflict management techniques, such as creating safety, both Conrad and Beth probably would have been able to forgive and connect with one another. Calvin does attempt to do this with Beth, but she denies that she has not forgiven Conrad and acts as if everything is still fine. Had Calvin and Beth used STATE, the marriage probably would not have ended in divorce.

Conrad has many instances where he displays both silence and violence throughout the movie.

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

with.

Beth is probably the best example in this movie of both silence and violence. She is extremely quick to react when it comes to sensitive subjects, like Buck’s death and Conrad’s suicide attempt. When Conrad attempts to bring up Buck wanting a dog when he was younger, Beth completely shuts him down by changing the subject to the neighbor’s dog; but Conrad does not want the subject to change and tries to put the subject back to Buck. Not surprisingly though, Beth continues to refuse to talk about him. Later on, Calvin brings up the subject of Buck’s funeral and she begins to get angry when he insists that they need to talk about it. Beth denies that Conrad is not okay; most likely because she does not want to go through him trying to kill himself again, so she simply just refuses to accept he is not okay.

Calvin, on the other hand, tries to be overly positive all the time. He has to try and please everybody so that they will not resent him. When Beth yells at him, he stays quiet and says nothing; and when Conrad yells and curses about the camera, Calvin does not get upset with him out of pity. Calvin also has the not-so-good conflict management strategy of denying problems, even major ones. When he is at the party with his wife, Calvin begins telling people that Conrad is seeing a psychiatrist, but Beth interrupts him and gets angry at him that he is telling other people private, family information. Calvin, on the other hand, sees nothing wrong with this and has difficulty understanding why his wife is mad. He goes on to say, at the party, that Conrad is absolutely fine; this is again a direct example of Conrad’s parents denying a big problem within their family.

The Jarretts are a highly dysfunctional family as demonstrated throughout the film. Conrad Jarrett eventually finds help coping with his emotions by talking to Dr. Berger and Jeannine. However, in the beginning of the film, he had much difficulty doing this due to how much he used contrasting as his conflict management strategy. Beth Jarrett ends up leaving her family all together in the end of the movie, after Calvin tells her he does not know if he truly loves her anymore. Beth continues to run away and avoid/deny her problems instead of facing them. Calvin Jarrett ends up connecting emotionally with Conrad in the end, and he and Conrad begin the process of rebuilding their lives again. Unfortunately, the marriage most likely ends in a divorce, but it could have been prevented had the Jarretts used better conflict management strategies and had they been more honest and straightforward with each other and their feelings. The Jarrett family most likely had not met Maslow’s love and belongingness needs, which therefore means that if those needs are not met, the needs above it will not be met until the needs lower in the pyramid are met first.