The Breakfast Club :: essays research papers

The Breakfast ClubFive teenagers who dont know each other throw off a Saturday in detention at the suburban school library. At first they squirm, fret and pick on each other. Then after take in some marijuana, a real encounter session gets underway. The stresses and strains of adolescence have turned their inner lives into a minefield of disappointment, anger and despair. The catalyst of the crowd is Bender (Judd Nelson), a ungovernable working-class punk who seethes with rage and attacks his peers with sarcasm. A cigar burn on his arm is a sign of the abuse he receives at home. Andrew (Emilio Estevez) is a Varsity letterman in wrestling. Hes spent most of his youth trying to measure up to his fathers machismo image of him. This entails winning in athletic competition and preying upon weaker peers. He and Bender clash. Brian (Anthony Michael Hall) is an unhappy honors assimilator who wishes he could be accepted as a person and not valued just as a brain. Upset over a forgetful grade in shop, Brian has contemplated suicide rather than live with the ire of his disappointed p atomic number 18nts. Allison (Ally Sheedy) is the eccentric of the group. "My home life is unsatisfactory," she confides. Living in her own fantasy world, Allison cant rightfully tell the difference between the truth and the lies she fabricates. These teenagers dont like or respect their parents very much. One asks "My God, are we gonna be like our parents?" Another in the group replies "When you grow up, your heart dies." But the storm clouds over their lives are really the result of rigid high school caste systems. Despite an inappropriate music-video order and a phony up-tempo finale, The Breakfast Club offers a breakthrough portrait of the pain and misunderstanding which result from the social hierarchy created by youth themselves. The lookers and the jocks are popular and can do whatever they want except relate to those outside their social circle of win ners.