62 pages • 2 hours read
Judith GuestOrdinary People
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1976A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Music
Guest utilizes the motif of music to draw parallels in Conrad’s character arc. At the beginning of the novel, Conrad is most looking forward to returning to choir, which “is the one time of day when he lets down his guard; there is peace in the strict concentration that Faughnan demands of all of them, in the sweet dissonance of voices in chorus” (20). Conrad channels his perfectionism into his music following Faughnan’s example, a perfectionist in his own right. This directly reflects Conrad’s goals at the beginning of the novel: to regain control and order and return to presenting the image of the perfect son.
As the novel progresses, Conrad’s love of music becomes less about perfection and more about sharing his love of music with others. When he begins to date Jeanine, he spends more time at their house with her family. Her little brother is just learning how to play guitar, and after he shows him the chords he’s learned, he gives Conrad the guitar to play. Conrad “entertains him with a Simon and Garfunkel tune he still remembers, then some James Taylor, John Denver, a little Eric Clapton, for good measure” (199). Though he is still performing, there is a different motive behind it. Instead of striving to stand out as the perfect performer, he is sharing an intimate moment with a younger musician. He is growing from student to teacher, from a boy to a young man.
When Conrad starts to find his strength, music fills his mind instead of intrusive thoughts. One morning during his stay with his grandparents, a song pops into his head. He isn’t sure exactly what song it is, “but he loves those fresh and unfamiliar instruments, the recorder, the harpsichord; their simple statements of truth” (208). This song in particular demonstrates Conrad’s growing ability to face the unknown and find the beauty in it. The newness and unfamiliarity of the instruments are not frightening but instead excite him.
This eventually leads to Conrad composing original music. One day at Jeanine’s house, “he plays her the song he has composed upstairs in his bedroom over the past week. He loves doing this; the mathematics of it, organizing the notes into definite pictures” (245). At this point in the novel, Conrad is shaping his own identity. For the first time, he is separating what he wants out of life from what he feels is expected of him. He is writing his own story for the first time, just as he is writing his own music. This moment also marks a milestone in his relationship with Jeanine and his coming-of-age arc. He plays this song for Jeanine right before they make love for the first time. Afterward, Conrad feels even more secure in their relationship. Conrad’s growth and change as a musician once again parallel his growth and change in his personal life.
Gray and Blue
One of the first motifs introduced in the novel is the colors blue and gray: “Anxiety is blue; failure, gray” (2). Throughout the book, these colors have a heavy presence in the lives of the Jarrett family. Though Conrad makes the direct association between the colors and the emotions they represent, both he and Cal have various scenes where the colors haunt them.
Cal, who worries that he has failed as a father, does his best to hide his shortcomings in fatherly duties and responsibilities. At the beginning of the novel, he recalls that “when Conrad was in the hospital, back when the visits were limited to twice a month, he could afford to take responsibility: the sections of gray peeling paint in the stair wells” (9). The gray paint is a reminder of his alleged failures to his family, but while Conrad was away, he felt he could fix or erase them. Now that Conrad is home, Cal finds it much harder to escape from feeling guilty and responsible for the tragedies that have struck his home.
Conrad, too, has a hard time adjusting upon his return home. When Cal tells him to call Dr. Berger, he knows he’s made his father worry. Conrad thinks, “[n]ow he has infected his father, and the gray disease is dangerous to both of them” (15). Perceived failure—a result of The Dangers of Perfectionism—infects both of them and is one of the main components of the family’s discord.
Dr. Berger’s eyes are also the color of anxiety. When Conrad first meets Berger, he is startled by those “eyes, a compelling and vivid blue, beam into whatever they touch. They touch Conrad’s face now, and the effect is that of being in an intense blue spotlight” (38). Though Conrad eventually grows to love his sessions with Berger, his initial meeting is wary and anxious. Cal has a very similar experience when meeting Dr. Berger: “[T]he eyes have pinned him to the wall. A hard blue light” (121). Both Conrad and Cal find themselves more open after their first, intense interactions with Berger. Jeanine also has blue eyes, and Conrad finds peace with her after learning to open up with Dr. Berger first.
Ironically, during Conrad’s first visit, “A pigeon, dull-gray, lights on the cement window sill. It pecks inquiringly at the window for a moment; then flies” (43). It is a reminder of the feeling of failure that is always with him. Similarly, at the end, the gray returns to him in Berger’s office. However, it does not appear randomly to him in this scene. Instead, the color is something he must conjure himself: “Narrowing his eyes, he blends everything to gray-the curtains, the walls painted with huge, atomic grapevines and leaves, the dark, gorilla-like man across the table from him” (226). This indicates that Conrad hasn’t actually failed his parents or his brother. He has told himself he has, just as he is blending everything to gray on his own in Berger’s office.
Fence
The symbol of the fence represents Cal’s tendency to get caught between two of his loved ones. More often than not, he finds himself unable to act or side with either one of them, which ultimately does nothing to prevent further pain. When he first meets with Dr. Berger, he asks him what he wants to do about the fact that he feels like a drifter. Cal replies, “Nothing! I don’t want to do anything but sit here on the fence. Until I fall off. On one side or the other” (147). The two sides of the fence, in this instance, represent Conrad and Beth. Cal is nervous about upsetting either one of them, so he doesn’t choose either of them.
Another instance of Cal being stuck between two people is when he feels pressured to choose between Arnold Bacon and Beth. Bacon warns him that Beth will never share and that his marriage is a bad idea. As Cal reflects on this, he realizes that “[b]etween those two whom he loved, he had tried to wedge his own needs, sitting nervously on the fence. It hadn’t worked” (174). Cal’s attempts to please both parties in his life have ultimately led him to feel like he lost his identity and opinions along the way. Furthermore, his inaction never results in peace between his loved ones; if anything, it causes more harm in his relationships. By the end of the novel, Cal alludes to the fence being gone. His marriage is over, but he is able to build new trust and love with his son.
