Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

The Breakfast Club

ically makes him the immediate target of the antagonism of his fellow students.

Yet, when he accepts the offer of a joint, he has obviously gotten high before, and his social skills do in fact turn out to be up to the task of keeping up a conversation with the others. Actually, Brian is one of the most level-headed and socially capable of the five, which makes his revelation that he was considering violence even more startling.

Under considerable pressure from his parents, especially his father, to keep up his grades, he decided to sign up for a shop class, believing it would be an easy course to pass. Instead, he finds himself unable to produce a working lamp at the end of the semester. Threatened with a failing grade that would bring down his near-perfect grade point average, he has brought a gun to school, the discovery of which lands him in detention.

Although he admits that it is only a starter pistol, he was obviously contemplating doing harm either to himself or to the shop teacher who was giving him an "F." The others assume that he was thinking about suicide, but even if he was only thinking about hurting himself, bringing the gun to school signals that he wanted an audience for his self-destruction.

Brian would benefit from counseling to help him deal more effectively with his father's unrealistic demands and his own fear of failure. Erikson (1980) points out, "It is at the end of adolescence . . . that identity . . . must find a certain integration as a relatively conflict-free psychosocial arrangement - or remain defective and conflict-laden" (130). This is a critical period for all these individuals, who need to find identities that go beyond the labels of their school environment. Brian needs to find an identity that is more complex than being merely "the Brain." Until he is able to do so, he is at risk for holding himself (or allowing his father to hold him to) impossible expectations.

Adolescence ...

< Prev Page 2 of 10 Next >

More on The Breakfast Club...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
The Breakfast Club. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 21:36, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1709630.html