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Rachel Kaiser
5/1/2006
Revision
The movie “Dead Poets Society” takes place in 1959, at Welton Academy, a private all boys’ school. This movie is the story of a group of friends who all attend Welton, and have a new English teacher in the beginning of the year. Mr. Keating teaches them a lot of things like independence, thinking for themselves, and doing what they believe in, and he radically changes all of their lives. Mr. Keating sends his students messages of independence and self-exploration, while the discipline of Welton Academy discourages exactly this. This movie has to do with the ideas of transcendentalism in relation with Emerson and Thoreau. Mr. Keating stresses to the boys how important it is to be an individual, and to do things the way that they want to do them, and not just follow the people around them.
The characters in this movie showed the ideas of transcendentalism through their actions. Neil Perry chose to audition for a role in play because Mr. Keating had taught them the saying “Carpe Diem!”, or “Seize the Day!”, which is like living one’s life to the fullest and doing what one wants to do. Knox Overstreet, even though he had been discouraged by Chris, wrote her a poem and demanded that she accept his love for her, even though society as a whole was telling him not to. One day during a class, Mr. Keating had the boys walk down a courtyard, telling them that they should make the walk their own and express their individuality through this walk, and one actor, Charles Dolton, expressed his individuality by choosing not to walk because he didn’t want to. At the end of the film, Todd Anderson, who throughout the movie is unwilling to speak his mind for fear of non-acceptance, stood up on his desk as Mr. Keating left the room. Even though he was the only one doing it and he was being encouraged not to do it, he didn’t do what someone else wanted him to do, but rather did what he wanted to do. In another part of the movie, Mr. Keating helped Todd realize that the world will accept him because his thoughts and feelings are so deep and heartfelt by making him create a poem in front of the class.
In this movie, we saw very many examples of the ideas of transcendentalism. These ideas were displayed through the actors and what they did and said. Throughout the movie, the boys learned the following: how to live their lives to the fullest, how to stretch their minds, and how to exercise their rights to defiant acts of love for life and poetry. They also learned not to conform to the ways of society. The effects of these things would change them and the way they thought forever.