Breakfast Club Character Evaluations

The Breakfast Club was a movie about five very different characters, Claire, Andrew, Brian, Allison, and John Bender. Claire was a popular girl, Andrew was a wrestler (jock), Brian was intellectually gifted, Allison was a basket case, and John Bender was a rebel. On the outside they seem like very different people, in fact they were all socially opposite, but they also shared so much. As the movie starts out, the five teenagers are being punished with Saturday detention; their assignment for the next eight hours was to right a paper entitled "Who Am I?" Their most probable assumption was from them to write about their achievements. Being students in America, we are all raised to excel at whatever we do, whether it be at grades, wrestling, or being popular. Since "they judged themselves by what they do and achieve, their self-identities depend upon their achievements," (Kimball and Leidich page three). This leads to competitiveness, envy, jealously, and greed. Bender was jealous of Claire social status and of her leading "a better life" and to react to that he yelled at her and over-exaggerated the truth. He judged her by material possessions (earrings) and by social standings (prom queen), and he judged himself against her and that led to him wanting what she has (earrings and virginity). First he tried being more competitive with her by calling her names and putting her down so that he could seem higher and "cooler" than her. Then he became envious and jealous of her, wanting what she had. This two then lead to greed. Fortunately for the both of them, they got beyond the achievements and fell in love. They learned to judge each other by the quality of their relationships and their lives. On the outside, Andrew thought that Brian had a pretty good life. He had both good, loyal friends and great grades, something he could possibly be envious of. It appears that Brian had great friends that did not judge him for what he did, but who he was. Brian wanted to hang