Ordinary People by Judith Guest rite of passage hero
A rite of passage hero is a character who changes or matures as a result of experience. In Ordinary People by Judith Guest, Conrad is a rite of passage hero who changes as a result of his recovery journey. This novel deals with the Jarrett family and Conrad's attempted suicide/depression and his stages of recovery. Many people, such as his father and his psychiatrist, Dr. Berger, contribute to his recovery journey. Through many hard steps of life's situations Conrad begins to find his way to complete recovery. Conrad's recovery is seen through various ways; his physical and social improvement and his emotional and mental growth. In the beginning, Conrad struggles to regain his confidence and to move forward in his physical and social improvements. One of his first and most important of these improvements is his self-confidence in his appearance. When he looks in the mirror he thinks to himself, "God, his skin is clear when did that happen? How long has it been since he looked at himself ?" He then realizes that he is good-looking and girls might actually like him. This improvement is a step towards two of his other physical and social improvements, he has a desire for friends and he asks out a girl from choir, Jeannine
A reflection of Conrad's goals' list, a list of personal improvements he wanted to make in order to organize his life, states, "He is definitely in need. He finds each day as he looks around him that he is achingly lonely." It shows that Conrad is thinking about having friends and realizing the loneliness in not having friends. This is a big step for Conrad and shows he is recovering from the depression. The other item on Conrad's list is girls. Girls are something Conrad tells Berger he hasn't had much experience with but is definitely interested in. "Listen, I was wondering. Would you be interested in going out sometime?" This is what Conrad says when he takes a big step towards improvement and asks Jeannine out. These three improvements as well as many others show how Conrad is changing and acting as a rite of passage hero throughout the course of the novel. The basis of this novel, Conrad's recovery, is seen through many changes he experiences as a result of his physical and social improvements and his emotional and mental growth. He attains self- confidence which helps him to move forward and become involved with Jeannine, and this also then relates to his emotions through his making of these decisi
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Approximate Word count = 823
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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