The Family's Struggle in Brighton Beach MemoirsBrighton Beach Memoirs is the story of one family's struggle to survive in the pre-World War II "Great Depression" era. This was a time of great difficulty in which pain and suffering were evident. In this comedy, Neil Simon gives us a painfully realistic view of life in the late 1930s. The setting is set in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York, in the fall of 1937. It is a low-income area inhabited primarily by Jews, Irish, and Germans. The house is described as a wooden structure, 2 floors, close to the beach. The main character and narrator is Eugene Jerome. Eugene is a 15 year old boy going through puberty. Like Rusty-James in Rumble Fish, Eugene admires his older brother Stanley. His hobbies and hopes include playing baseball in hopes of becoming a New York Yankee, writing, and seeing the "Golden Palace of the Himalayas," which in other words is seeing a naked woman. Eugene always feels blamed for everything that goes wrong. He finds liberation from a family of seven by writing in his diary, which he calls his memoirs. Stanley is Eugene's older brother, 18 years old. Stanley can be described as a person who stands up for his principles. Eugene constantly seeks advice from him for his pubescent "problems". Stanley had to work young to support his family. We later see him lose his salary due to gambling and almost join the army. Kate and Jack Jerome are Eugene's parents. They constantly turn to Eugene for what to do. They have difficulty supporting their own family and that of his sister Blanche. Jack had to work many jobs to support everyone, which resulted in a heart attack. We later see Jack's relatives fleeing Nazi occupation in Poland to come and live with him. Blanche is Eugene's aunt and Kate's sister. When Blanche's husband David died, she found that she could not support her family. Kate and Jack agree to take her and her two daughters, Nora and Laurie, in and support them. We see that Blanche has a lot of trouble being independent. His daughters, Nora and Laurie, have their share of problems.