SUMMARY
Rona Maynard's The Fan Club is a story about Laura who witnesses her classmate, Rachel, being bullied by the "in" group. In the story, we see how Laura contemplates how she should act towards Rachel. In one of her class when Rachel has to deliver a speech, the bully gets even worse that she fails to give her speech successfully. By the end of the story, the "in" group tries to embarass Rachel ask Laura and the other classmate to do so to.
REFLECTION
The theme of peer pressure in this short story can be seen in Laura's internal monologue, how she describes the "in" group as exclusive. The "in" group is a typical popular clique in school, consisting of boys and girls who whould sit in the back of the class, passing notes and whispering, talking about other people behind their backs. Although not stated directly, it seems that Diane Goddard is the queen bee of the clique as she shows very dominant behaviour that even Laura is scared of.
In this story, the "in" group's biggest target is Rachel Horton whose real name is actually Rachel Hortensky, Laura's awkward classmate whose family lives in a "greasy little shop where you could always smell the cooked cabbage from the back rooms". Rachel's father is a tailor and it seems that she is embarass of her own family situation which prompts her to use the surname Horton.
Our protagonist Laura is set up as neutral at first: she is not a part of the "in" group but she doesn't bully Rachel either. In fact, we sees Rachel approaching Laura and they ends up having a conversation together. Although Rachel seems to be quite fond of Laura (saying that she tells her parents about her), it seems that Laura is not entirely genuine when she talks to Rachel, only responding to her questions and statements. At the end of their conversation, Rachel invites Laura to come to her house and Laura can't help to think about the Rachel's horrible house, but she says she is glad to come instead.
In the class, Laura then witnesses Rachel gets bullied when the girl is trying to deliver her speech. The bullying represented in the story is not physical bullying like what we see on TV, it's verbal bullying. The "in" group members cuts Rachel off when she's delivering her speech, they whisper condescending things about Rachel to each other, causing her to feel nervous and fails to finish her speech.
Apparently, the "in" group has a much bigger plan than just insulting poor Rachel. They embarrass Rachel in a very horrible way, one that makes me feel really bad for her. After the bell rings and the teacher gets out of the class, the entire class stands and clap for Rachel, not in a proud and saluting type of clap, but a cynical and sarcastic clap. More than that, the students are wearing little card that consists of an illustration of a "fat, frizzy-haired figure", I assume this is either Rachel or Rachel's father. Written in the card is also the phrase: HORTENSKY FAN CLUB. Furthermore, Diane Goddard approaches Laura and offer her the same card which Laura shockingly accept. The story ends with Laura clapping along to embarrassed Rachel with her friends.
The Fan Club hits home for me because I have been in the same situation, not in Laura's unfortunately, but in Rachel's. It's really sad to see Rachel being embarrased over and over again throughout the story and yet she cannot do anything. It's even more sad that Laura, the one 'friend' she trusts, ends up joining the bullies too.
The short story uses bullying as a central conflict, but the theme of peer pressure is very clear if we pay attention to Laura's monologue and thoughts. Although portrayed as neutral at first, we can see that Laura is heavily thinking and influenced by the "in" group. She thinks about the "in" group behaviours and describes the details of it, implying that she has been observing them. When Rachel approaches her, she seems hesitant to talk to her and the author even states clearly the she fakes her enthusiasm about coming to Rachel's house. Once the conversation is finished, she wonders if the "in" group had paid attention to her.
Laura seems very subconscious about how the "in" group sees her. In a school where bullies are present, a lot of people who are being bullied nor a part of the bullies often feel like they cannot do anything to fight the bully. They are scared that if they help those who are bullied, they might get bullied too. Moreover, bullies often pick targets who are similar, usually nerdy and awkward, don't have too many friends so it's easy to pick upon. People are scared to be friends with the bullied because they fear having the same label as them, they ends up becoming a by-stander instead.
We can see that Laura is pressured to not be friends with Rachel. Her persprective of Rachel is based solely on what the "in" group sees on her: to Laura, Rachel is an awkward and weird girl who doesn't want to admit that her father the tailor live in greasy horrible home. Although it seems that Laura doesn't hate Rachel, she in fact feels sorry for her. But she falls to peer pressure anyways, ends up joining her classmate to embarrass Rachel at the end of the story. She is approached personally by Diane whom I conclude she fears, so she probably feels like there is nothing that she can do if she doesn't want to be an outcast like Rachel.
Interestingly, Laura contradicts this behaviour twice. The first one is after her conversation with Rachel, when it's time to sing the national anthem. Here, Laura thinks about the irony of living in the United States, the so-called land of free, when discrimination still exists. The second one is through her speech. She talks about prejudices and discrimination, encouraging her friends to forget about them and starts to learn to respect dignity. One of the line of her speech actually says: "... as long as we are still victims of irrational hatreds..." which could be a reference to her thoughts in the beginning of the story where she wonders about why people hate Rachel.
The Fan Club by Rona Maynard tackles theme of the peer pressure of being a by-stander. Laura is fully aware of what kind of people the "in" group is and she believes that discrimination and prejudices should be stop, at least that's what she wrote on her speech, so she could have stood up for Rachel. But she didn't. She throws her dignity and joins the other to discriminate Rachel instead. All in the name of trying to fit in.
REFERENCE
Maynard, Rona. “The Fan Club.” CommonLit, https://www.commonlit.org/en/texts/the-fan-club.
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