Essay Questions on the Breakfast Club

     John Hughes’ 1985 film, The Breakfast Club, gives countless examples of the principles of interpersonal communication. Five high school students: Allison, a weirdo, Brian, a nerd, John, a criminal, Claire, a prom queen, and Andrew, a jock, are forced to spend the day in Saturday detention. By the end of the day, they find that they have more in common than they ever realized.

John pushes against the society’s standards. He is against taking soma, a drug that puts you are peace and goes against the social means. John takes the soma from workers at the hospital receiving their pay. “’Free, free!’ the Savage shouted, and with one hand continued to throw the soma into the area while, with the other, he punched the indistinguishable faces of his assailants. ‘Free!’ And suddenly there was Helmholtz at his side —‘Good old Helmholtz!’—also punching—‘Men at last!’—and in the interval also throwing the poison out by handfuls through the open window. ‘Yes, men! men!’ and there was no more poison left. He picked up the cash-box and showed them its black emptiness. ‘You're free’” (213). John hates people taking soma because it takes away their freedom, which keeps them from thinking and speaking freely. He continues to fight the system when he isolates himself at the lighthouse because he is so against the World State. He ends up not wanting to be in the world. He hangs himself to show everyone how messed up it is and prove himself to the world controllers.

In the movie The Breakfast Club, five seemingly different adolescents are assigned Saturday detention where they learn that although they each fit a particular stereotype, they all have the same characteristics, but they are expressed differently because they have different experiences, strengths and weaknesses that makes them who they are. In the movie, Bender is the “criminal”, Brian is the “brain” and Allison is the “psychopath.” Each of their situations, strengths and weakness are similar to students that are in our classrooms currently or we may have in our classrooms in the future. For each student it is important to understand their learning differences and as a teacher, how I can use their strengths to help them become

John still feels as though he can relate with his brother on a new level of trust and respect. “But where was I? Who was I? How did I miss so much (Wideman 687)?” John admits to himself here that the situation with Robby had gotten so out of hand for him and his family most of the time they chose to look away. He has blocked so many wrongful actions from his mind that Robby’s “confession” made him realize all that he had been suppressing for years. John feels like a “hypocrite” because when the TV was stolen his father in law bought him and his wife a new one. With their homeowners insurance though they were refunded 100 dollars. Instead of giving it to his father in law he chose to keep it. When the truth came out his father in law was hurt and felt that John had manipulated the situation. Though this is a small mistake compared to Robby and his crimes,

It’s obvious John doesn’t like civilization. He even states this in Chapter 17 of Brave New World. He’s appalled by civilization’s methods and its lack of humanity. He’s “pissed off” when the World State tries to enforce their rules on him. He feels his only option is to fight back. It’s really an unfortunate situation for John the Savage. Their rules require you to “Be happy all the time,” so the only way he can fight back is to make himself miserable, and he does. He does this to show that he’s not under their rule. So it’s possible that he self-mutilates in rebellion to the World State’s

1)A group role is the part a member plays in a group, as a function of your traits, personality, your expectation, expectations of others in the group. and who you are as an individual. Each member in the Breakfast Club has had an input into the story line and there are multiple characters with different roles, inputs and circumstances and all of them interacting to make this film quite interesting. Lets start off with the most deviant of them all.

John's life seemed to be one major drama after another; he didn't have a good male role model as a kid, and it seems he never was able to get on track. What was amazing about his life was the number of problems that he seemed to get into and how he wriggled out of them (with the help of a friendly person who just happened to meet him) only to run into more problems.

In the society described in the story John is shown to be different from the others in his civilization. Unlike others he is curious, willing to take risks, or even break rules. This was made apparent when John recalled when he went to the Dead Places, touched a piece of metal and did not die "(S)o he knew that I was truly his son and would be a priest in my time. That was when I was very young- nevertheless, my brothers would not have done it"(Benet 76). This quote directly shows one way that John is different and more daring than the rest of his brothers. John's more courageous attributes can be viewed as something extraordinary due to the fact that he discovered so much throughout the book. However this trait may also be looked

The Breakfast Club is an inspiring tale of five adolescents: Brian, Andrew, Claire, John Bender, and Allison, from diverse backgrounds that unite over a course of eight grueling hours in mandatory Saturday detention. These five individuals come from different social groups and a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds are present, but in the end they discover that they are more alike than they assumed.

John was terrified of discovering the truth about his father. O’Brien explained that for John, “[Knowing] is to be disappointed. To understand is to be betrayed.” (242) While hiding the truth was convenient for John, the secrets piled up and ultimately proved to be too much of a burden. For as hard as John tried to cover up the truth, he always knew about his father’s drinking. “That was the worst part. The secret drinking that wasn’t secret,” O’Brien explained. (66) When Paul hanged himself, however, John was finally able to face the truth. He was still a child, and at the funeral he continually screamed in front of the entire procession, finally relieving himself of the burden of years of secrecy. While the truth of Paul’s alcoholism was not pretty, and was certainly less convenient to face than simply ignoring it, it was a significant relief for John. His mother explained: “I hate to say it, but it was a relief to have him out of the house. John and I, we both adored the man, but suddenly all the tension was gone and we could have supper without sitting there on the edge of our seats.” (97) Throughout the rest of John’s life, a similar process of hiding the truth and ultimately accepting it would repeat. As he progressed to the next stage of his life, as a young adult serving in the Vietnam War, John would bear a secret much heavier than his father’s

The major development seen in John’s character takes place near the end of the story, as he seeks a more pure life in a remote location. John feels as though he’s been poisoned by this new civilization “I ate civilization. It poisoned me; I was defiled. And then, I ate my own wickedness.” (241). He wants to not only live a noble life, but to make this life on his own, so chooses an abandoned lighthouse, far enough away from the disaster of a community he views Brave New World as a negative place with negative ideas. This is a major change from the identity he showed before being poisoned by this civilization, but once again he stays true to his values by leading this new life on his own. John’s strong moral values prove to be the one constant in his character.

One day when Jackson was in english class he was saying blasphemous to the teacher, Mrs. Tessa. Mrs. Tessa had enough of Jackson’s blasphemous and sent Jackson down to the principal’s office. The principal, Mr. Pen, told Jackson if he didn’t began to ack priority he would go to detention. Mr. Pen also said said detention would be two full weeks. Jackson began reverie the idea of being in detention. He saw Calvin, Crystal, and Sarah with disapprobation looks on their faces. Calvin who just yesterday kept impeding the math lesson by screaming at the math teacher to stop teaching because Calvin didn’t like math. Calvin will be in detention for three weeks. Crystal who, just like Jackson, was blasphemous to the teacher. Crystal will be in detention

This making him a dynamic character. To start off, let's talk about how he acted in the beginning of the story when he was first introduce. John at first seemed to be a normal kid. He seem happy to from the stories the

I first learned of one of the many flaws that John so very well hid one day when we driving to go skiing. I was remarking how good he looks on paper and how he is basically a “ the perfect guy”. After casually expressing my opinion John said that he suffers from anxiety and anger management issues. He currently took medication and attended sessions to control his behavior. This shocked me because he never showed signs of either. He said that his father used direct aggression with his siblings and that his fathers strict Italian values were dredged into his head. His father was an ethnocentrism person and so was John because his he was surrounded by Italian culture and old values. I am Italian as

Thesis Statement- in Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the psychological struggle between the need for stability and the desire for freedom is perhaps the central concern of Breakfast at Tiffany's.