Quinn the Brain: Difference between revisions

Quinn eventually writes an essay entitled "[[Academic Imprisonment]]", comparing school to prison. It so impresses Mr. O'Neill — despite glaring mechanical flaws and a petulant tone — that not only he gives her an A as he reads the text aloud and later has is published in the school’s newspaper.

The grade has unintended consequences: at the Morgendorffer’s, Quinn manipulates her parents into giving her money for the grade, a system Daria is quick to point the faults of by noting [i]''she[/i]'' had consistently maintained high grades for long. And, at school, the consequences are deeper: Quinn’s published essay makes her appear smart and intellectual. Her initial distress is soon gone andas she transforms being smart into a fad.

Daria, who had first been eager for Quinn’s to be known as smart (as she tough Quinn would become an outcast), soon despairs when she sees, during the following days, that Quinn has maintained her popularity and is assumed among classmates and teachers to be a good writer, despite her writings being awful. That perception causes Daria to suffer an identity crisis on Daria and she only snaps out of it withafter thetalking help ofwith her father.