The Breakfast Club Sociological Analysis

In the movie The Breakfast Club, each of the characters are deviants and each of

the characters have different factors that make them deviant. I know, right!? Even

the adults. Allison, known as the basket-case of the group, shows the most amount of

deviance.

When the movie first starts Allison will not say a word. When Mr. Vernon

asks her a question she only squeaks and puts her face down on the desk with her hood

up. Later in the film, Mr. Vernon leaves them alone and Allison takes a string from

her jacket and wraps it around her finger until her finger turns blue. She drew a very

nice picture and instead of drawing in snow, she decided to use her dandruff. During

lunch, Allison takes the bologna off of her sandwich, throws

it onto a statue where it

sticks, and then starts putting sugar and cereal onto the sandwich instead.

Also during

lunch, she spills her soda and then starts drinking it from the table top. She stole many

objects including Bender’s knife and lock for his locker and also Brian’s wallet. She’s a

compulsive liar and seems to be in the middle of a complete mental breakdown.

These deviant behaviors might seem random but they are actually the responses

to different sociological theories. The most prominent theory that Allison shows is the

strain theory. The strain that her parent put on her when they ignored her has caused her

to act defiantly. Yup. She wants to be part of the norm, as is shown when she

submits at the end of the film. This strain has caused her to pack away a horde of

Kayla Larson

The Breakfast Club character essay

2/27/14

items that she carries around in her purse at all times. She says that she keeps everything

in there because she is saving up for when she runs away. Allison’s response to the strain

has made her retreat from the social norms and also has made her reject the goals she

could have achieved and also reject any way she could have achieved those goals. She

did absolutely nothing wrong but she goes to Saturday school anyways and spends

the

whole day doing things that could have gotten her into actual trouble. She lies to make

people think that she is crazy so that they will stay away from her. She does this so that

she can retreat from all of the people around her and make it easier for here when she

decides to run away and go “live in the mountains.” Yeah, she definitely has a

retreatist vibe going on.

Allison may be considered a basket-case in the movie but everything she does is

perfectly explainable if a person examines her from a sociological point of view. She is

deviant in many ways and many people see her as only a weirdo but Allison is the perfect

example of retreatism in a person.