An In-depth Look at Dead Poets Society

The very decade referred to as the 1950's was an extremely conservative and straight arrowed time in America. Welton Academy followed this formula to a t. Tradition and excellence in education were the standards in which free thinking was stopped. This was seen as a contender for possibly crippling a Welton Academy student's chance of getting a traditional education.

Every student was ordered to follow the four pillars that the school stood for. The rest of their very lives were already layed out for them by their parents. All of them were going to graduate from academy, attend an prestigious Ivy League college, grab onto a safe and non dangerous field such as medicine or legal practice. Todd, Neil, Knox, Steven, Charlie, Gerard and Richard all decided to take a lesser known road in their journey with Mr. Keating as their captain of the ship. their lives would never be the same from this moment on.

Communication is one important aspect of life. Communicating with one another and telling each other how we feel is how we know peoples' feelings in life. Before Mr. Keating started to teach, the environment of the English class was very lacking in the communication aspect. Typical methods of replying were basically only speak when you are asked to or when you are asked a question.

Mr. Keating knocked down these traditional walls. He encouraged these boys to express their honest feelings. These young men had never interacted with a teacher so well like they did with Mr. Keating. The sense of a sender and a receiver was very one sided. Students were always the receivers and the head teacher was always the sender. It was never allowed before to be the other way around with students being the sender and the teacher being the receiver.

Robin Williams, with his character brought a new sense of direction for these kids. He gave them an opportunity to try things for themselves and experience them and communicated to them a sense that he was once in their shoes and that he could relate to them instead of the normal standard of the teacher being on a higher platform than the students and not coming down to their level so the students could relate to him and see where he is coming from.

Mr. Keating went beyond the normal boundaries of an English teacher with all the kids. He taught the kids things in English that they could use in real life. When the class was commanded to rip out the introduction out of their textbooks, he wasn't telling them just to literally rip it out of the book, he was telling them to rip out the normal way of learning things out of their heads and insert a new way of learning that involves real life emotions and situations that no textbook could teach you.

The Welton Academy was very uprooted in tradition. This tradition included no free thought, following very deep traditions that had produced excellent results in years gone by, and no methods of learning and teaching that challenged the strict traditions and standards that the school had. Every student was just a tall lanky boy in a suit and tie too. You were not allowed to stand out and have your own personality.

When Mr. Keating arrived, he wasn't the slightest bit the traditional teacher that occupied the staff. He was a free thinker, an unconventionalist who didn't believe in textbooks. One major thing that he stressed was carpe diem! or seize the day in Latin. These boys were finally allowed to express themselves in the ways that they needed to in order to find their identities and unique qualities that would set them apart from the rest of the pack.

Mr. Keating encouraged these boys to find their own stride and strut in the courtyard. This lesson dealt with batting conformity and having your own qualities in life. "If life was a play and you were only allowed to write one act. What would it be?" was an important line in this movie concerning the fact that you only get to live once, so you might as well do it now or forever hold your peace. Todd getting the right amount of nerve to call up Ginny Danbury wouldn't have happened if carpe diem wasn't stressed in English class. Neil wouldn't have pursued his acting dream in the same way if he wasn't told to seize the day.

Voice is one thing that has a major effect in life and as well had one in this movie. Ultamitely, I think voice is what caused Neil to commit suicide as he was under pressure from his father to withdraw from the play and give up his dream of acting which his father complained about and hated. If Neil had voiced his concerns to his father about how he wanted to be an actor and that he wanted to live his live on his own instead of his father deciding that he was going to attend Harvard and be a doctor like he did to Mr. Keating.

I believe that if Neil did in fact voice his whole opinions and how he was feeling in his heart about the whole situation with his father and what he wanted to do in his life, he wouldn't have committed suicide due to his unhappiness. All of these kids had the opportunity to use their voice with reciting poetry that was in the Dead Poets Society handbook and use that to find their own path in life and their own identity.

In the end, they did use their voice to pay tribute to their fallen comrade Neil shouting "Oh Captain Thy Captain" from the top of their desks to rant against the conformity of their boarding school traditions and find their own selves and give Mr. Keating the tribute he deserved in helping these kids out in the best way he could. That was finding themselves in a cookie cutter world.