My High School Reunion

A class reunion is a meeting of former classmates, typically organized at or near their former school by one of the class on or around an anniversary of their graduation. Former teachers may be invited as well. They reminisce about their school days and bring each other up to date on what has happened to each of them since they went their separate ways.

In film and literature, especially comedy, crime novels, thrillers and psychological suspense novels, class reunions have been a frequent device used to show the eruption of emotions such as shame, hatred or guilt within individual characters who, suddenly faced again with their own youth, become aware of the fact that they have been unable to cope with their past. In many cases, those who used to be bullied, humiliated or in any other way mistreated by their teachers and/or classmates believe that now their chance has come to take revenge on their former torturers. Often in fiction, participants nostalgically reminisce about their old school days, fondly remember their school pranks. Alumni are quite often concerned about how their lives have turned out when compared with the lives of their former classmates, and will sometimes feel pressured enough to go to great lengths to concoct stories about their fruitful careers, personal accomplishments and relationships with others.

Another staple of this kind of fiction is former classmates taking up with their old flame again, either because they have changed to their advantage and developed into an admirable adult or precisely for the opposite reason—because they have not changed at all in a fleeting world.