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Ordinary People is the story of both Conrad and Calvin Jarrett. Because the novel focuses on two different people, there are several conflicts throughout the novel that are specific to those individuals. The central question in Conrad's story is whether he will be able to recover after his suicide attempt. As Dr. Berger points out, half the people who attempt suicide will try to do it again at some point in their lives. The inclusion of Karen's suicide towards the end of the novel is a way of reminding the reader that Conrad may not have recovered completely even when he seems to be getting better; after all, Karen seemed to be doing well when Conrad met her for a Coke earlier in the novel. The main question in Calvin's story is whether he and Beth will be able to make amends. Their conflict is based essentially in a communication problem: Calvin believes that the way to heal the wounds of the past is to talk through them and discuss feelings, while Beth only wants to move on from the past. She dislikes Calvin's attitude and his insistence on worrying about his son. The conflict between the two parents is resolved at the end of the novel when Beth leaves. Structurally, the novel does two things. First, it alternates back and forth between the stories of Calvin and Conrad, with each chapter shedding some new light on their individual struggles and conflicts. This alternating style gives the novel a kind of mirror-image structure: just as Conrad gets better over the course of the novel until he is really healed, the marriage between Calvin and Beth spirals downward until it fails. The second structural tactic of the novel is that it begins in a world that is already in some way ruined: Buck has already died, and Conrad has already tried to commit suicide even before the first chapter opens. On the one hand, this indicates that the book is a novel about healing and rebuilding a ruined world, rather than about how that world got ruined in the first place. This structure, however, also gives the book a reverse coming-of-age feel. There are countless children's books about boys who begin the novel as innocent kids and after a series of life experiences end the novel as slightly more mature and wiser young adults (Huckleberry Finn and The Catcher in the Rye are examples.) Ordinary People tells a coming-of-age story backwards. Conrad has already been through his moment of great experience--the death of Buck--and the novel is really the story of how