The show revolves around Cory Matthews; the other characters often serve to help him cope with his difficulties in achievement in school, his moral conflicts with his best friend, Shawn Patrick Hunter, and his trouble understanding his girlfriend Topanga Lawrence. Shawn is dissimilar to Cory; he is a social rebel, he has an unsupportive family, and he has success with women, something which Cory envies at times. Cory's mother and father (Amy and Alan Matthews) are hard-working people trying to make a decent living in order to raise their three children (by the end of the series, a fourth child, Joshua Matthews, is born). Their other two children are Eric Matthews, the funny, handsome, half-witted older brother who tries to distance himself from Cory at all possible times; and Morgan Matthews, the younger sister, who sometimes uses her position as means of getting what she wants. Cory, with his stubbornness and laziness, struggles with his friends to get through school. To help them, there is Mr. George Feeny, Cory's teacher and neighbor. He tries as hard as possible to get them through school and he eventually does. Finally, there is Topanga Lawrence, Cory's first love, and in the later seasons, his fiancee, then wife. Topanga and Cory's relationship is the main focus of the later part of the series, and at the end of the series, Topanga, Cory, Shawn, and Eric leave suburban Philadelphia for New York City while later new-comers to the cast, Jack and Rachel join the Peace Corps and Angela goes to Europe with her father.