ipl-logo

The Breakfast Club Identity Analysis

1190 Words5 Pages

INTRO: Iconic 80’s movie The Breakfast Club is our inspiration for this dialogue. When this group of high school delinquents was assigned to write an essay during detention on who they were, the group sparks up the conversation of personal identity, ultimately discovering themselves. The scene opens with the students serving their detention sentences in the Library. BENDER: [to Claire] Hey pretty lady, what are you doing here. CLAIRE: Go gag on a spoon. If you MUST know, nothing major, just ditched to go shopping. BENDER: THAT’S IT?!?! I pulled the fire alarm, I was going to end up in here anyway. I’ll be here for the next six weeks[lounges in chair- to Brian] How’d you get here? I thought the only place you belonged was in the inside …show more content…

Now we have to write an essay too? How am I supposed to know who I am? BRIAN: It 's easy, all it is, is an essay on personal identity. Who we really are, what makes you you. For example, I believe that we are our brains; it is where all our decisions are made, even the bad ones, like the ones that got us stuck here. So the good and bad in us is all in our brain, it is us. We are all our brains... CLAIRE: ...But we have never seen our brains, we know they are there, but if you took my brain out and your brain out and put them side by side, you could not tell which is mine and which is yours. Therefore, I think we are our bodies. That is what we see in the mirror, that is what we identify with, that is how others know who we are. Hence, that is us. BRIAN: You don 't look the same as you did five years ago, and you won 't look the same in 50. How are we supposed to recognize something which is constantly changing? CLAIRE: Your brain is constantly changing; you are always learning new things, meeting new people and making new memories. If you are saying that if something changes it is not the same, then your argument is …show more content…

We aren’t the bookshelf at all, we are the books. Since you two bimbos are so obsessed with book analogies, I will put this in terms your underdeveloped brains can understand. The bookshelf is kept by maybe God or whatever mystical force of the universe keeps us all in line. The bookshelf is something us mortals will never be able to see. The only thing we can see and be sure of is the fact that we are the book. Everyday our brains are unconsciously scribing ourselves onto pages which make up the book, us. For example if you changed the cover, one would still say the book is the same. If you ripped out a couple pages, the book would still be the same. What I am trying to say is we are this invisible thing that exists in the body and the brain. BRIAN: So if you ripped out all the pages of this book you’re speaking of, would they still be the same person? In other words why do people who have lost all their memories still considered, legally, the same person? CLAIRE: Yeah Bender your argument does not make sense. People 's “cover”, physical appearance, is changing constantly, yet they are considered the same person. BENDER: Claire are you ever focused on anything besides your looks? CLAIRE: At least I have something to brag about and am not a low life like you. BENDER: (to Claire) Bag your

Show More
Related
1100 Words | 5 Pages

Whether we’re students, first-time parents, or working in a new place, our identity is a compilation of all the things we have experienced. In the world of The Graduate, Braddock develops a separate identity through platonic sex with Mrs. Robinson and a love interest in Elaine that differs from the disconsolate attributes that defined Braddock’s identity early in the film. Similarly, I was able to discover a part of myself that had never previously existed. Through consciously making an effort to put myself in a discomforting situation, I was able to mature and grow as an individual. I’ve learned that it’s not in moments of comfort that we develop but rather in moments where we face aspects of our life that are uncertain that we are able to adapt and discover parts of our

Read More
1866 Words | 8 Pages

The film The Breakfast Club follows five students who must serve a school detention on a Saturday due to a various wrongdoing. Due to this behaviour, they are sanctioned through the means of a weekend detention in hopes that they will never go against the school’s rules, values and norms again. The five students are noticeably different and each represents a certain subculture within the school. John Bender is one of the five students and is defined as the criminal of the group.

Read More
346 Words | 2 Pages

" This detention brings them together and causes them to cross social barriers that they otherwise never would have. The students are tasked with writing an essay about who they are and what helps them figure this out more than the essay is their time spent together that day. This film is iconic for demonstrating

Read More
1199 Words | 5 Pages

“Like, when I step outside myself kinda, and when I, when I look at myself, you know? And I see me and I don’t like what I see, I really don’t.” Anthony Michael Hall played the role of the brainiac, Brian Johnson, in The Breakfast Club. Likewise, Brian is portrayed as the typical “nerd” in high school; he strives to do his best and please his parent’s.

Read More
1347 Words | 6 Pages

Adolescence can be described as a period of awareness and self-definition. According to Erikson (1968), it is an important period in the enduring process of identity formation in the life of an individual. The movie ‘The Breakfast Club’, focuses on a group of five adolescents, and their pursuit to find their prospective identity. This essay will focus on the process of identity development in these five adolescents, with particular reference to the character Andrew Clark. In addition, it seeks to highlight the different identity statuses, as well as, the factors that facilitate or hinder identity formation.

Read More
1580 Words | 7 Pages

INTRODUCTION QUOTE OR FACT. The Breakfast Club was a film produced in 1985 by John Hughes in Shermer, Illinois, that involved 5 different stereotypical teenagers in detention who were assigned an essay to tell his or her story. When the day ends, they all queried if they were all somehow the same. The experiences they had throughout the film made them question the stereotypes given to them. The purpose of The Breakfast Club is to inform teenagers and adults of the negative effects that stereotyping and parental pressure has on young adults.

Read More
993 Words | 4 Pages

A Glimpse Into the Developmental Roles of Adolescents The Breakfast Club is a movie about five high school students who have to serve detention one Saturday morning. When each student arrives, the viewer gets a brief glimpse into the characters backgrounds. At the beginning of the day you can clearly see the separation among the five students. Claire is considered the princess, Andrew is the athlete, Brian is the brain, Allison is the basket case, and John Bender is the criminal.

Read More
178 Words | 1 Pages

In the movie, The Breakfast Club, five high school students spend their Saturday detention together. The popular girl Claire Standish, the athlete Andrew Clark, the nerd Brian Johnson, the outcast Allison Reynolds, and the rebellious delinquent John Bender must put aside their differences to survive their detention with their assistant principal, Mr. Vernon. While in detention, they are told to write about “who they really are” in one thousand words. Throughout the day, they reveal their struggles involving their cliques and their home lives. As the movie progresses, the audience finds out the reason each teen is in detention which brings up a discussion about who they really are.

Read More
831 Words | 4 Pages

In the movie, Philadelphia, psychologists are able to apply: attribution theory, self-verification theory, social identity theory, cognitive dissonance, and drive theory to explain the behavior of some people. The attribution theory explains the cause of someone’s behavior by associating it to their personality or situation. In the movie, it is applied when Andrew is fired. The law firm claimed that they fired Andrew because of his incompetence, which is a fundamental attribution error because they were blaming him for the reason they fired him.

Read More
1354 Words | 6 Pages

Derek Parfit is a British philosopher who specialises in problems of personal identity and he proposes that we separate the notions of identity and survival. He is one of the most prominent philosophers in the struggle to define the self. Parfit’s 1971 essay “Personal Identity” targets two common beliefs which are central to the earliest conversations about personal identity. The first belief is about the nature of personal identity; all questions regarding this must have an answer. Between now and any future time, it is either the case that “I shall exist or I shall not”.

Read More
1919 Words | 8 Pages

Conclusion: The mind is substantively different from the body and indeed matter in general. Because in this conception the mind is substantively distinct from the body it becomes plausible for us to doubt the intuitive connection between mind and body. Indeed there are many aspects of the external world that do not appear to have minds and yet appear none the less real in spite of this for example mountains, sticks or lamps, given this we can begin to rationalize that perhaps minds can exist without bodies, and we only lack the capacity to perceive them.

Read More
456 Words | 2 Pages

The film “The Breakfast Club” exemplifies group dynamic because at the start of the movie they don’t know each other and they think that the personalities are the same as the stereotype linked to their social group, but when they get to know each other the stereotypes go away and they realized that they are very similar. B y the end of the film everyone in the group figures out that they aren't that much different and they are all struggling with being misunderstood, so they realize that they were judging the other people in detention when they weren’t so different. In the movie The Breakfast Club John Bender is the criminal, Claire Standish is the princess, Andy Clarke is the athlete, Brian Johnson is the brain, Allison Reynolds is the basket case. Mr. Vernon gave everyone in the group a piece of paper and a pencil and told them to write a 1,000 word essay on who each one thinks they are. The group responded to the assignment by writing one essay explaining that it was stupid to write who each person thought they were because each person was a basket case, criminal, brain, athlete, and a princess.

Read More
500 Words | 2 Pages

In Mcleod’s article, it said that people “‘think about, evaluate, or perceive’ themselves” (Mcleod 1). Mcleod talks, in the article, about how people thinking, evaluating, and perceiving about themselves is call self-concept. Whenever people think about themselves, most of the time, people are confused about whether or not they are pursuing right actions for their future, especially people with low self-esteem . Furthermore, people get more confused if their actions dramatically differ from others. However, again, people’s actions determine who they are, so even if their actions are dramatically different from others, it may be a path for that person’s success.

Read More
1104 Words | 5 Pages

In his philosophical thesis, of the ‘Mind-Body dualism’ Rene Descartes argues that the mind and the body are really distinct, one of the most deepest and long lasting legacies. Perhaps the strongest argument that Descartes gives for his claim is that the non extended thinking thing like the Mind cannot exist without the extended non thinking thing like the Body. Since they both are substances, and are completely different from each other. This paper will present his thesis in detail and also how his claim is critiqued by two of his successors concluding with a personal stand.

Read More
1090 Words | 5 Pages

The Breakfast Club portrays elements of adolescent development very well. In this stage of our lives we are trying to figure out who we are. Some of us may explore different identities and there are others that just do what others tell them to do. The movie depicted role confusion in each of the characters. It also talked about peer pressure and how it influences how we act.

Read More

More about The Breakfast Club Identity Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document