Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
Stuck in the SuburbsIf MTV Cribs proved anything, it's that our rooms are often reflections of ourselves. And that Fifty Cent has almost as many shoes as Mariah Carey.We open Ordinary People in Con...
Narrator Point of View
Men, under pressure to be men, dudes, and bros, often don't show their emotions. In fact, the APA says that men's mental health is often neglected and misunderstood. So it's a different perspective...
What's Up With the Title?
If Ordinary People were published these days instead of in 1976, it might be called Basic People, because you just know the Jarrett family is the type to order a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks...
What's Up With the Epigraph?
But what a shining animal is man,Who knows, when pain subsides, that is not that,For worse than that must follow—yet can writeMusic, can laugh, play tennis, even plan.—Edna St. Vincent MillayHa...
What's Up With the Ending?
Like a recurring dream about that geometry test you failed freshman year, the Jarretts are going around in circles. After a huge fight with Beth, Conrad thinks, "Circles and more circles, where doe...
Tough-o-Meter
Ordinary peopledon't say "lackadaisical" when they can settle for "lazy." Ordinary words will do just fine; no need to get fancy. And the ordinary people of Ordinary People have ordinary vocabulari...