Beth Jarrett in Judith Guest's novel Ordinary People is a woman who uses illusions to protect herself from the outside world and from the reality that would destroy her completely. She is a family woman, and her family becomes the center of her illusion. Judith Guest develops this character through a series of interactions with other members of the family. Beth is not the central character in the book, and much of what we see of her is through the eyes of others. However, their view of her is important because her deteriorating mental state affects them and shapes the way they react to their own place in terms of their membership in the family.
Beth Jarrett is ultimately a woman brought to a point of despair by the death of her son, a death she will not truly acknowledge and cannot truly mourn. We meet her in the middle of her n
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