The Breakfast Club

"The Breakfast Club" is a disparate group of high school students at a suburban Chicago school in the mid-1980s. They have each done something to violate school rules and been punished by spending a Saturday together under the watchful eye of the school's disciplinarian, Richard Vernon (Paul Gleason). At the beginning, they seem to fit five distinct stereotypes: Brian Johnson, "the Brain" (Anthony Michael Hall); Andrew Carr, "the Athlete" (Emilio Estevez); Allison Reynolds, "The Basket Case" (Ally Sheedy); Claire Standish, "the Princess" (Molly Ringwald); and John Bender, "the Criminal" (Judd Nelson). As the day goes on, however, each emerges as a distinct individual, dealing with adolescence in his or her own unique way. All five are at some point in Erik Erikson's fifth stage of psychosocial development, and the ways in which each is dealing with particular problems illustrates some of the primary crises of the process

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ng and might find he genuinely wants to continue to play on the team. It is, after all, a sport that relies on individual achievement and could help him build his low self-esteem. However, this would be possible only if he decided to stay on the team of his own volition, not simply to satisfy his father. Allison Reynolds is an especially interesting case. Presumably, she has been dubbed "the Basket Case" because she is already seeing a therapist, an experience that has made her watchful and taught her how to manipulate others by what she says and how she says it. She claims to have slept with her psychiatrist, but she also claims to be a compulsive liar and, later, still a virgin. In fact, for most of the day, she chooses to remain silent, observing the others but keeping to her own world. When she finally does speak, the first thing she says is to tell Andy that she drinks heavily. Later, however, when the others smoke pot, she is the only one to abstain. For most adolescents, substance abuse is unilateral; if she is indeed a drinker, she would be likely to also abuse drugs. Her "confession" may simply be another one of her lies. She is one of the two whose parents are never seen, only referred to. According to Allison,
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2455
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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