Summary
As they walk home from school, Ralphie and his friends encounter Scut Farkus and Grover Dill, older boys who bully them until they run away.
At home, Ralphie's father arrives announcing he won a "major prize" from Western Union. He shows the family a telegram announcing his win, and fantasizes about what the prize might be.
At dinner, Randy refuses to eat his food until their mother encourages him to act like a pig.
A knock interrupts the family's dinner as men arrive to deliver the prize. The box is labeled "Fragile" but Ralphie's dad pronounces it "Fra-gee-lay," claiming that it "must be Italian."
When he opens the box, they find a lamp shaped like a women's leg. His father plugs it in and is thrilled to see the lamp in the window while Ralphie's mother is embarrassed. Ralphie's father brags to the neighbors that the lamp is an important gift.
At school, Ralphie fantasizes that his teacher is emotionally overcome by the beauty of his writing on the "What I want for Christmas" prompt and that she gives him an A+ on the assignment.
After school, the family goes out to buy a Christmas tree. On the way home, they get a flat tire and Ralphie's mom suggests that he go help his father change the tire. While helping, Ralphie accidentally drops the tools and says the F-word in front of his father.
Analysis
As the film progresses, Ralphie's mother and father become more complex characters, and the events contrast each parent's individual relationship with their children. The dinner scene is significant because Ralphie remarks that his little brother, Randy, refused to eat anything at all. When Ralphie's father quietly threatens to shove the food down Randy's throat, Ralphie's mother intervenes and encourages Randy to act like a pig eating from a trough. Ralphie and his father look on, disgusted and confused, while Randy and their mother laugh at Randy's pig impression.
This difference in behavior between the father and mother highlights the father's severe and intimidating demeanor at the same time that it highlights the mother's kindness and patience. However, this contrast is reversed later when Ralphie accidentally mutters the F-word in front of his father and it is his mother's reaction that he fears the most. In fleshing out the characters of the parents, the film portrays the typical experience of a child who feels connected to their parents in different ways and at different times.
This section of the film also features the most famous joke in A Christmas Story: the leg lamp and Ralphie's father's mispronunciation of the world "fragile." The film portrays Ralphie's father as foolish for seeing the lamp as anything other than a tacky and mildly pornographic piece of junk, and his attempt to elevate the value of the lamp by pronouncing "fragile" with a European accent emphasizes his deep desire to rise above the family's middle-class station.
By contrast, Ralphie's mother is quietly mortified by the family displaying the lamp in their home, so much so that she attempts to move it out of the window when the neighbors come to look at it.
This dynamic of the proud father and embarrassed mother furthers the lighthearted conflict between Ralphie's parents while also foreshadowing the fate of the lamp later in the film.
