Teen Suicide In E. Hinton's Ordinary People

Teen suicide. Just thinking about it sends a shiver down my spine. The idea of teen suicide was unknown to many of us until just recently. And although we have only been exposed to it a few times, it’s happening all around us. “Every day, approximately 95 Americans take their own life, and 2,370 more attempt to do so” (The Truth About Suicide). When anyone is recovering from an attempted suicide, like Conrad the main focus is on how the victim recovers and how you are supposed to help them recover. Every time that you are around that person you are either helping them get better or making it worse. I think that in reality most people would react very similar to the way that Con’s friends and family did. Beth, Calvin, and Con’s friends all had very different reactions, but are they making Con better or worse?
One of the main topics in “Ordinary People” is the relationship between Beth and Con.
Once Conrad returns home from the hospital Beth immediately expects things to go back to the way that they used to be. She thinks that Con is still going to act like he used to, as if he never attempted to commit suicide in the first place. This causes an argument throughout most of the book, not only between Beth and Con, but between Beth and Calvin too. I think that most people would agree with Calvin that the way Beth is treating Con isn’t going to make him better. She doesn’t give Conrad any attention. Her actions lead Con to believing that she doesn’t even love him. In the book he told Calvin that, “She hates me” (Guest). “It appears that Beth resents Conrad in many ways” (Relations in Ordinary People). In the time that Conrad should be healing Beth is pushing him away and because of what she is doing she could push Con back to where he was before. Conrad having the feeling that he is unwanted and unloved by his mother isn’t going to make him
better. Some people might argue that how Calvin is treating Conrad is good for him. For some people it might be and maybe in other situations it would be, but in Con’s case I don’t think it is. As soon as Conrad gets out of the hospital Calvin instantly begins to smother and baby him. Calvin thinks that it is the best way to do things and make Con feel better. Calvin thought that Beth was giving him too much room, but Calvin isn’t really giving Conrad enough room. The way that Calvin is handling all this could easily push Con right back to trying to kill himself again. Conrad might not like the fact that Calvin is always so worried and always wondering what he is doing or if something is wrong. Calvin could push Conrad back to attempting suicide just as easily as Beth could. Beth and Calvin are not the only ones that effect Conrad’s healing process, his friends do too. Throughout the book Conrad doesn’t really talk to all of his friends that much. The few parts that he is around all of the guys doesn’t usually seem to go to well. I think that Con feels like his friends don’t understand him anymore. This could also make things for Conrad worse while he is trying to get better. When he goes around them I think that it makes him feel even more lonely than he normally does because they don’t understand him and that irritates him. To us it doesn’t really seem like his friends would be that big of an impact on Conrad’s healing because they aren’t in the book that much, but they are. If being around his friends makes him feel alone and think of Buck, then it’s going to give him the same thoughts and feelings that he had when he tried committing suicide the first time. And that could lead to it happening again. All in all, the way that Beth, Calvin, and Conrad’s friends act around him and treat him could affect his recovering process for better or worse. His mother not giving him any attention, or Calvin giving him too much attention and being too worried, or just the simple things that being around his friends remind him of could turn everything around for him. In some cases the way these people reacted would be ok, but in others it could take a turn for the worse. The victim of an attempted suicide isn’t the only one that has to recover from it, their friends and family do too.