A Comprehensive Analysis of Literary Protagonists - Sykalo Evgen 2023

Allison - “The Breakfast Club” by John Hughes

(aka a long, chaotic love letter to every girl who doodled in the margins and said nothing out loud)

Let’s get one thing straight: Allison Reynolds does not want your attention. She doesn’t need your approval. And she certainly didn’t ask to be dissected in a high school detention center turned anthropological exhibit. But here we are—thirty-something years later—still obsessed. Still pulling the thread on her silence like it’ll unravel some grand truth about alienation, identity, or whatever it is Gen Z is calling “vibes-based personalities” these days.

If you don’t remember Allison (which, first of all—rude), she’s the goth-adjacent, trench coat-wearing, dandruff-flaking wildcard in John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club—the 1985 film that gets shown in school libraries under the pretense of "cultural literacy" but is really just about the deepest, most awkward emotional detox ever conducted on a Saturday.

She doesn’t speak for the first third of the movie. When she finally does, it’s with a voice so dry, so unconcerned with impressing you, it could be AI-generated if it weren’t so disturbingly real. But make no mistake: Allison is not a prop. She’s not “the weird girl.” She’s the only one not performing.

Let’s talk about that.

Silence as Weapon, Shield, and Language

In a movie where everyone talks a lot—Brian the brain babbles through anxiety, Claire the princess defends her social Darwinism, Bender performs his toxic-boy trauma theater—Allison... doesn’t. At least not at first. Her silence is invasive. Uncomfortable. Like a mirror held up in a room full of people pretending to be fine.

And silence, when used like this, becomes a kind of commentary. It’s the literary equivalent of slow blinking at a man explaining crypto. Allison’s silence isn’t passive; it’s loaded. Every time she doesn't speak, she’s saying: You’re all full of it, and I’m not playing your game.

Which, let’s be honest, is kind of iconic.

This is not your typical character arc. There’s no big “aha!” moment where she decides to assimilate into the lunch table of the popular kids. She doesn’t deliver a monologue about her trauma (though she hints at it with enough quiet horror to suggest serious parental neglect). She doesn’t try to be likable. And in doing that—by refusing to narrativize herself for the sake of the group—she becomes more real. Which is ironic, since she's the least “realistic” in terms of 1980s teen movie stereotypes.

But here’s where it gets weird. Or brilliant. Or maybe both.

The Makeover Scene: Feminine Betrayal or Survival Tactic?

Let’s address the eyeliner-wrapped elephant in the room: the “makeover.” Yes, that moment. The scene that launched a thousand feminist thinkpieces and Tumblr flame wars. Claire, in her benevolent Regina George phase, gives Allison a pastel transformation. Cue the string music. Cue the wide-eyed gasp from the jock. Cue the audience’s collective internal scream: WHY.

It feels like a betrayal. Like the one girl who opted out of the high school gender Hunger Games just got pulled back into the fray. Like we lost something essential.

But hang on.

What if—hear me out—it wasn’t a sellout moment, but a social experiment? What if Allison, ever the anthropologist in her own life, just wanted to see what it would feel like to wear the armor instead of watching others hide inside it? She doesn’t seem thrilled about the transformation. She looks... perplexed. Curious. Not exactly empowered, but not humiliated either. Maybe she’s just testing it out. Playing the game for a minute—not because she believes in it, but because she knows better than to underestimate it.

This isn’t about becoming palatable. It’s about playing with palatability.

That, friends, is power.

The Most Literate Character Who Barely Speaks

Let’s talk literary value. Because yes—Allison isn’t just