The Breakfast Club Identity

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. The irony in it is that as these five students serve detention together they discover over the course of the day that they actually have many similarities. They all have different backgrounds and are involved in different social groups, but discover that they

619). The concept of egocentrism is apparent at the beginning of the movie. The students do not know anything about each other and seem reluctant to accept each other early on. According to Erikson (as cited by Harris-Young, 2012), the concept of Identity versus Role Confusion is apparent throughout The Breakfast Club. Erickson referred to this period as the psychological conflict that adolescents experience (Berk, 2012, p. 600). During adolescence, teenagers struggle with finding themselves and establishing their own identity. They are in a transition period between childhood and early adulthood. Some teens will go through an identity crisis, while searching for their

We can tell that Claire comes from a higher socioeconomic class because her father drives a BMW. She appears to be spoiled because she wants her father to get her out of detention (Tanen & Hughes, 1985). Claire decided to skip class to go shopping and that is why she has to serve detention. When her father drops her off, she says, “I can’t believe you can’t get me out of this” (Tanen & Hughes, 1985). Andrew, an athlete, has a lot of pressure from his father. His father was once a prankster, but he wants his son to be able to have a shot at a scholarship. He is upset with Andrew because he doesn’t want Andrew to miss out on an opportunity. When Brian arrives, we can tell that the pressure is on him to excel academically. His mother tells him, as they pull up, he needs to make sure he makes use of his time during detention. She wants him to figure out a way to study. John Bender walks to the school for Saturday detention. It is clear by the way he arrives at school that his parents are not involved. Allison’s parents pull up to drop her off and there is no interaction at all. When she gets out, she actually walks towards the passenger door, and they pull off (Tanen & Hughes, 1985).
Claire deals with peer pressure from her friends. She is popular and doesn’t want to stand up to her friends. She mentions in the movie that she feels like she has to listen to her friends. Erikson’s Task Identification vs. Sense