The Breakfast Club Essay Example
The Breakfast Club Essay Example

The Breakfast Club Essay Example

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  • Pages: 8 (2041 words)
  • Published: December 10, 2017
  • Type: Film Analysis
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The Breakfast Club was a 1980’s movie that took a look at five high school students. They were all sentenced to a day of Saturday morning detention.

All though all five come from different cliques and walks of life they all come together to discuss and work out there lives, problems, and insecurities. The main characters include Claire, Allison, Andy, Brian, and John. They are all stuck in the schools library under the careful watch of the Principle Richard Vernon. All this was accompanied by a little appearance of the lowly but witty school janitor.

Claire noted to be the “princess” plays the popular girl in the movie. She was given the Saturday detention because she decided to skip class to go shopping at the mall. She is the dau

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ghter of two parents that are divorced and hate each other. They use Claire as pawn in there little game to upset each other. She is very aware to this because she notes it while they are doing there group therapy. She hates the fact that she has to follow what her group does and that she can’t go on her own and do, say, and wear the stuff she wants.

She also finds solace in the fact that she is “a cherry” or the fact that she is a virgin who hasn’t really done anything with a person of the opposite sex. The character John Bender uses her fragile nature to get a rise out her frequently in the movie. Bender harasses her asking questions like if she would go out with a guy that had elephantitus of the balls, or when Claire shows the group he

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talent of putting on lipstick using her cleavage as a holding point of the lipstick container.He questions her eating habits when she reveals that for lunch she is going to have sushi. Claire at one point states that she hates Bender and storms away from her even though at the closing of the movie Bender and Claire are hinted to start dating as you see them kiss and then Claire hands over one of her diamond earrings for Bender to wear.

Andy is the athlete. He is a jock that is pushed into mostly everything from his demanding father who won’t tolerate anything, but winning. Andy and Bender immediately begin butting heads.At one point they get into a real altercation which leads to Bender revealing he has a knife and that if he wanted to he could kill him, but it wouldn’t be worth it because he wouldn’t want to have been sued.

Andy’s major problem is that he can’t think for himself. He found his way into detention partly do to him wanting to appease his father. His father always told Andy of all the times they fooled around in school and had fun and raised hell. One day after wrestling practice he saw a nerd and one of Brian’s friends Larry Lester. He noticed his week stature and small build so he decides to make his father proud.He takes the tape he was using to tape up his knee and tackles Larry to the floor and tapes his buns together.

He is very sorry, remorseful, and apologetic for what he did to Larry. He outs himself in Larry’s shoes and what it had

to have felt like for Larry to come home and tell his parents what happened. At this point Andy is in tears and stuns the audience when he so desperately wants out of what he is doing he wishes that one of his knees would give and end his career so he couldn’t be driven to be number one. Andy early on seems to have a connection with Allison. They go on the soda trip together.And after she shares the contents of her purse with everyone he confronts her alone.

John Bender is the “criminal” of the group. He is in detention regularly, but on this occasion he is put in detention because the Friday before he pulled a false fire alarm. Throughout the movie is given 2 months full of detention for various acts of defiance and snarky comments. John Bender comes from an abusive home.

He only mentions his father who is a drunk that physically and emotionally abuses his son. He is always talking down to Bender and at one point Bender reveals a cigar burn mark his father gave him when he spilled paint in the garage.Thanks to the abuse brought on by his father his attitude towards life and authority is a harsh one. He is very emotionally abusive to the other four in detention.

It seems he uses his hostile personality to distance himself from anyone. Bender causes many breaking points in the movie. He helps the other students examine and evaluate themselves. At one point he gets all of the other kids to come with him to his locker so he can retrieve his pot. He then shows

his selflessness by sacrificing himself so that the others can return to the library without getting in trouble. After this he is placed in the back closet in Richard’s office.

He does escape however when he goes through the venting system and ends up back in the library by crashing through the ceiling. The principle comes in asking what the ruckus was. They all stick up for Bender and do not rat him out. At an earlier point there is a stand off between Vernon and Bender in which all Bender has to do is keep quiet and he wouldn’t receive any additional detentions.

However do to Bender’s stubborn nature he doesn’t stop. Allison is the basket case. At the beginning of the movie all she does is sit in the back of the library by herself not saying a word except for the occasional squeak or an occasional random noise.For lunch she makes a captain crunch and pixie stick sandwich. She also draws a brilliant picture, but to top it of she uses her hair dandruff to make a snow like effect on it.

She doesn’t speak a lot, but there is a lot going on with her. She is a chronic liar and a kleptomaniac. It’s hard to believe anything she says because she admits to lying all the time. But from her own accord she claims to be a sexual deviant.

She later recants, but it is unclear is she is really in therapy. She also claims to drink a lot of vodka.At a certain point when Andy and Brian are just chatting and Allison comes over and starts listing off all of

Brian’s personal information. She knew this information from stealing his wallet. She then decides to dump all of her purse contents out in front of both of them.

She says she will do whatever it takes to make it on her own. The conversation gets to scary for her and she leave in frustration. What is made pretty clear is that she finds her home life unbearable. Not in the sense that most kids find, but in the fact that she is ignored at home.Since she is ignored at home she begs for attention at the school level, but make up ridiculous lies so that others with pay attention to her.

Allison wasn’t he suppose to be in detention. At least according to her she was in detention just because she had nothing better to do that day. Brian is the brain of the group. Bender believes he has a perfect home life. He in fact does a little performance of what it is like at his house. He then acts out a Leave It to Beaver like scene.

His lunch contained soup, milk, and a fruit, and peanut and jelly with the crusts cut off. All of the food groups were well represented Bender commented.He as well as Claire is ashamed of being a virgin. He at one time tells or at least leads on to the fact that he had sexual relations with Claire to Bender just so Bender won’t think he is a complete loser.

Bender puts his marijuana in Brian’s pants. He also indulges in the pot smoking later in the movie. He is in detention for a very gloom reason.

He took wood shop thinking it would have been an easy A grade.

Apparently wood shop isn’t his thing and he is unable to correctly do a project that is a large part of his grade. He receives in F and that completely destroys his GPA. Thanks to the F the best he can do as a final grade is a B.His parents strive for him to get academic excellence.

So with his perfect GPA ruined he seems to be contemplating suicide. He brings a flare gun to school. The gun goes off in his locker. There are two minor characters that are in the movie. That would be the principle and detention officer Richard Vernon and the school janitor who is known in this as Carl. The principle is an arrogant and aggravated man who has fears of the upcoming generation running the country which he says keeps him awake at night.

His main reason for his grumpy mood at least for that moment in time was being agitated by John Bender who seems to get under his skin.At one point Mr. Vernon takes Bender into a back room with no witnesses and begins a diatribe of why he is worthless and then challenges Bender to a fight. That scene seems to help show that Richard is a disturbed man. Later the janitor, Carl, finds Richard looking at private student files which is against school policy. Carl enters the library at one point to empty the trash.

Carl sends a greeting to Brian in a form of a “hi”. Bender interjects and asks if Carl was Brian’s father. Carl then goes on a little

monologue about how he is the “eyes and ears of this institution”.Carl catches Richard looking at the private files and blackmails Mr.

Vernon which helps show that Carl although decent can be a shyster. Most of this is revealed during the group therapy they have near the end of the movie. Afterwards we can see some major changes in the way each of them carried themselves. Claire gives Allison a make over to which Allison asks why Claire was being so nice to her.

After the make over Allison reveals her make over to Andy. Andy seems to show a little interest in her at a relationship level. Claire visits Bender in the back room he was locked in nd they seem to hit it off and a relationship seems to form. Claire begins giving Bender a hickey. Bender makes a joking yet serious comment on how good he would be to help get back at Claire’s parents.

Nearing the end of detention and the movie we find Claire asking for Brian to write one paper for all of them instead of each of them writing their own. She cites the fact that it would make no sense for them all to do it and since he is the smartest that he is the best one for the job. In the paper he explains that no matter what they wrote in their essays that Vernon would think of them what he wanted to think of them.The papers would have just been a practice in futility. He goes on to explain that he would think of each one as a brain, athlete, criminal, basket case, and

a princess. At the tail end of the letter he writes “sincerely yours, the breakfast club”.

As they leave the school it shows both new presumes couples Andy and Allison along with Claire and Bender going there separate ways for now. The letter is being narrated over this scene by Brian as Richard Vernon reads. Then in the last shot we see Bender raising his hand as he leaves the school and football field as the credits open.

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