A Gift of Laughter Have you ever gotten mad at someone for disrupting you, and then realized they were only trying to help? That same thing happened to Robbie and his father in the story A Gift of Laughter by Allan Sherman. When Robbie interrupts his parents’ conversation to show his dad a picture, his dad gets frustrated and upsets Robbie. Throughout the story his father remembers his own childhood days, which in the end changes his attitude towards his son, and reveals the theme. It began when Robbie’s father was having an important conversation with his wife.
But the pressure for students to perform athletically or academically, the cliques that are present, and the relationships with parents shows the viewer that the struggles students faced in the 1980s and today are not so different. The first element that shows there are significant similarities and differences between The Breakfast Club and Century High School is the pressure from parents to perform well athletically or academically. In The Breakfast Club, Andrew Clark, or the “athlete” of the group, feels tremendous pressure from his father. This is shown first-hand when Andrew is dropped off for detention that Saturday. His dad yells at him and tells him that he cannot miss a wrestling match this season, because that could put his collegiate athletic scholarship in jeopardy.
Jim choked his father for not standing up for him and he stormed out of the house. Jim wanted to confront his parents about his problems that he has and he wanted to fix it. He does not want to run away from his problems anymore, he wants his parents and him to faced the problems they are having together. Jim wanted his father to learn how to stand up for himself. Ray Stark (Jim Backus), Jim s father, does not have respect from his son and Jim s mother.
Once he decided to join, he informs all of his friends about the exciting news until Neil’s father, Mr. Perry, gets word and demands for his son’s private attention out in a nearby hallway. For the majority of Neil’s life, choices have been made for him. He’s been living out the ideas of Thoreau, animating a "life of quiet desperation” and can’t seem to “suck the marrow” out of life. Mr. Perry’s academic expectations of his son are so high not even Neil is convinced that he’ll fulfill them with a cheerful heart. Perry’s friends attempt to comfort him shortly after the brief argument between himself and his father, but being “future bankers and lawyers”, Neil believes that they’re in the same boat, unable to tell him any different.
These impressions quickly placed stereotypes among them; Andy being the jock, Claire the popular princess, Bender the thief, Alison the psychopath, and the “Brian” being the genius. After spending the day with all these different personalities, Andy reminisces a time he beat up another guy to make himself feel bigger and tougher amongst his friends. He soon realized what a mistake it had been, understanding how difficult it would be for him to go home and face his father. Andy has been through the torment of never being good enough in his father’s eyes and he
The story begins when the narrator reads about his younger brother, Sonny, being arrested for selling and using heroin. The narrator then continues his day as a high school algebra teacher, but cannot seem to get Sonny off of his mind. As the day progresses, the narrator begins to think of Sonny when he was the age of his students. He states, “When he (Sonny) was about as old as the boys in my classes his face has been bright and open, there was a lot of copper in it” (98). The panic and disbelief of such news lasted throughout the entire day, including his encounter with one of Sonny’s friends after school let out.
For example, on page 237 in the textbook, it says: “It had always been hard for them to talk for more than a minute or two before his father got offended at something Luis said, or at his sarcastic tone. He was always doing something wrong.” Eventually, though, he realizes that his father does care a lot about his dead wife, and that he never got over her death. What helps Luis realize this was his falling in love with Naomi. A sentence from the story supports Luis’ realization: “Luis worked and worked, beginning to understand a little why his father kept busy all the time.” The main theme for this story is simple: love can change people. In the second story, “The Bass, the River, and Sheila Mant,” the main character, the narrator, is in love with a girl, who isn’t at all like him.
In the movie Sarty, played by Shawn Whittington, is portrayed as an older boy of about fourteen years. In both the short story and the movie, Sarty is caught in a dilemma between his own sense of honor, and loyalty to his father (Bloom pp. 65). In the opening scene Sarty is called to testify during the hearing against his father, he is about to confess what his father did when the judge dismisses him. But when he goes outside and hears some boys calling his father a barnburner, he immediately comes to his father’s defense.
Sammy shows that he is in a transition period when he speaks looking towards the future. Sammy looks down upon his coworker because he still works at the A&P at an older age; Sammy wants to have a better life with a better job. The protagonist in Battle Royal is literally in a transition state because he is going from high school to college. In “A&P” Sammy quits his job because he felt that his boss was rude to a group of girls who came in with their bathing suits on. A main factor in Sammy quitting was the approval of the girls, but after he quit he stated, “I looked around for my girls, but they’re gone of course”(554).
The Mayor of Who-ville, played by Steve Carell, is a stressed dad who has trouble communicating with his son, a moody emotional boy named Jo-Jo. Throughout the story the directors portray situations in which any children can relate to all the time. Like being embarrassed by a parent for something they have done. The dynamic duo is taken on by Seth Rogen ,in the role of a irritating not stop always fast paced house, Morton , Horton’s best friend. Mr. Rogen’s casting, like Mr. Carell’s, is that of a comedic relief.