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Essay Archive - Judith Guest's "Ordinary People": Summary
Judith Guest's "Ordinary People": Summary
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 a....
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