"The Breakfast Club" Character Analysis Essay

In all of our lives there are goals we have, values we possess, and strengths and weaknesses that make us who we are. All of us, no matter if we are a jock, or a brain, someone who succeeds in education, or someone who wants so badly to get out, face barriers in our lives. Some of us come from broken families, some us of come from abusive situations, but all of us have a unique and individual story. At the heart of this story are the struggles we have experienced, the people we have associated ourselves with, and the lessons we have learnt along the way. Such can be said about my own life, and the lives of the characters from the Breakfast Club. The characters from the Breakfast Club that I feel most represent me are: Claire Standish (The

Throughout the movie, Brian goes through the Identity Foreclosure, Identity Moratorium and Identity Achievement statues of James Marcia’s identity statuses theory. When Brian lives up to his obedient, “Good Citizen,” nerd image, he’s in the Identity Foreclosure status since he unquestioningly adopts his parents’ and society's visions, values and roles. He follows rules, questions rebelliousness and allows others to view him as weak for being a geek. Then, he transitions into an Identity Moratorium status where he delays his commitment to being the Brain and explores “alternative ideologies” and sides to himself when he smokes weed and connects to the troubles and philosophies of the rest of the Breakfast Club (Weiten, 457). Finally, at the end of the movie, Brian achieves the Identity Achievement status where he grows closer to a sense of identity and direction after “thinking through alternative possibilities,” or hanging out with the rest of the Breakfast Club (Weiten, 457). After being accepted by others, Brian builds his self-esteem and values his life despite his failures once and for all.

being classified as a late maturing girl. There were also multiple boys throughout the movie that were going through adolescents and puberty.

The Breakfast Club is a movie about five students from Shermer High School who gather on a Saturday to sit through eight hours of detention. These five students; Andrew Clark, Claire Standish, John Bender, Allison Reynolds and Brian Johnson, have nothing in common. The Breakfast Club zooms in on the high school social groups and cliques that are often seen in the development of peer groups during adolescents. The peer groups that are portrayed in The Breakfast Club include, John “the criminal”, Claire “the Princess”, Allison “the Basket case”, Brian “the Brain”, and Andrew “the athlete”. The movie centers around an essay that Principle Vernon wants each student to write regarding who they think they are. In the beginning of the film, the

Example 1 – Andrew displays Identity Diffusion when he conforms to peer pressure and follows the acceptable behavior of the group. When the group decides to leave the library, he also follows even though he know the teacher has strictly forbade them from leaving their chair.

Released in 1985 and directed by John Hughes ' The Breakfast Club ' is a film about teenagers that seem different on the surface but come to discover otherwise . When five students from different high school cliques are forced to spend their Saturday in detention, the brain, athlete, basket case, princess and the criminal together are faced with the question of who they think they are. The five characters put aside the ir dissimilarities in aid to survive the painful eight hour detention and in the process they discover they aren 't as unalike after all.

Five teens, five different cliques, one eight-hour Saturday detention. These is the basics of The Breakfast Club. Through spending the day with one another Allison, Andrew, Brian, Claire and John realize there isn’t much difference between them, and the differences that are between them aren’t too important. Watching The Breakfast Club is a great way to learn about adolescents. You have five, very different -yet very similar- adolescents to observe along with what they do together. In observing them you can understand how they’re beginning to cognitively develop from children to adults

The Breakfast Club movie is about five high school students from Shemer High School with different backgrounds. It’s the story of “a brain (Brian), an athlete (Andrew), a basket case (Allison), a princess (Claire) and a criminal (Bender).” The purpose of the movie is to captive the feelings and perspectives on what other people have experienced and learned from each other. The analysis about The Breakfast Club is about the common insecurities and challenges of the teenager during high school. The Breakfast club is a movie to convey emotions, fears, and companionship that everyone can relate to. However, with new knowledge comes new perspective and emotions. This movie opens up a world of abstract thoughts because none of the five students know each other and it helps to create an interpersonal communication, they revealed to each other how their lives actually are. This movie is about Social Judgment Theory, Interpersonal conflict, self-disclosure, Social Comparison Theory and an unresolved life conflicts of a teenager life by finding their identities.

The movie The Breakfast Club was released in 1985, and is based on a group of five high school students from stereotypical cliques; the popular, jock, nerd and the outcasts, who all wind up stuck together for Saturday detention. Throughout the movie many themes present themselves such as teenage rebellion, peer pressure and family issues as the students get to know each other. The most prominent theme throughout the movie is the student’s placement in the social structure of the school. From the very different reasons why they are in detention to the way that they are all treated differently by the principle, their social placement is evident.

Brian Johnson, or the “Brain,” in the movie The Breakfast Club, possess thought processes evident in Piaget’s Formal Operational Period stage in his theory of cognitive development. During Piaget’s Formal Operational Period, people begin to “apply their mental operations to abstract concepts in addition to concrete objects;” their thinking is hypothetical, systematic, reflective and logical (Weiten, 448). Brian asks himself existential questions like “Who do I think I am? Who are you? Who are you?” as he brainstorms Mr. Vernon’s assignment for the students in detention; these thoughts are abstract. His thought processes are also logical since he’s extremely intelligent; being part of the math, Latin and physics club requires some advanced thinking skills. Additionally, he understands how concrete applications like engineering stem from abstract concepts like Trigonometry. He also reasoned that if he took a class like Shop that “dopes” take, he could pass that class easily to maintain his GPA; such reasoning requires complex thinking. Finally, his thinking is reflective, especially when he ponders the permanence of the Breakfast Club’s friendship and describes how he steps outside himself to analyze what he sees. Unfortunately, when he observes himself, he’s highly critical and despises his “true” self; he possess a highly negative view of himself, labeling himself a failure, eventually leading to suicidal thoughts and actions.

According to Erik Erikson, he identifies the task of an adolescent as identity versus role confusion. This is where adolescent tries to form their personal and social identity. Some adolescents may adopt the values and beliefs of their parents; however, others may develop their identities from peers and oppose the values and beliefs of their parents. Adolescence who are emerging into adulthood struggles to confine with their psychological, cognitive, social, and emotional development. During this time period, there are five distinctive characters of emerging adulthood: age of identity explorations, age of instability, self-focused, age of feeling in-between, and age of possibilities. In The Breakfast Club, five high school students spend their Saturday together in detention, and they have to set aside their differences in order to make it through those long hours. The jock, the princess, the basket case, and the criminal reveal their internalizing problems involving their peers, parents or self. Their behaviors and personalities indicate the underlying issues of their cognitive and social development. The interaction between the students helps them find common ground with each other and learn the details of their life beneath the stereotypes. Throughout the movie, John Bender has an impulsive and aggressive personality that can be characterized by the environment that he was raised in, his

The Breakfast Club was an extraordinary film that dealt with teenagers in detention. Although it looked like a regular movie, it had deep meanings involved with it. The movie showcases a circle of teens who are completely different from each other. At first they didn’t interact with one another, but as the movie goes on they begin to become close friends. The Breakfast Club does a great job at exemplifying the dynamics of a group in society because there are so many associations of people who interact with each other even if the interests are completely different. The characters in the movie move from an out group to an in group because they all felt like outsiders towards each other, but as time was going on in detention they were starting to really like each other. They became an in group towards the end of the movie because they made their own grouping, which they referred to it as “The Breakfast Club”.

The Breakfast Club is a film that exhibits many dynamics within society which are then displayed throughout school systems. Throughout watching this, I was able to relate some of these sociological groups to my own experiences within high school and analyze sociological elements and themes within the film.

For example, due to his extreme need for approval and social support coupled with peer pressure, he is unable to demonstrate intellectual autonomy and he has gotten involved in inappropriate behaviors and activities. Some of the effects of Author giving into peer pressure have led to him becoming a perpetrator of dating violence, using illegal drugs, abusive language and disrespecting his aunt, teachers, and his boss. Author has begun to spend less of his free time with his family and more time with his friends who have dropped out of school.

In high school peer pressure is stronger then ever. Students are critically judged by their peers and are forced to either compromise one’s own moral values to fit into the group or face being ostracized and out casted. Students sometimes feel backed against a wall and following the group is sometimes easier than going against the grain.