Dead Poets' Society Analysis

Mandi Kanu

COR 100

D. Linton

Sept. 28, 2004

"Now I'd like you to step forward over here. They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they're destined for great things, just like many of you. Their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see, gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? Carpe... hear it? Carpe... carpe diem. Seize the day boys. Make your lives extraordinary."

"Carpe diem; seize the day." That was the basis of Professor Keating's philosophy in life. It was a romantic philosophy. He wanted his students to learn "to contribute a meaningful verse, so that when it came time for them to die, they would not "discover that [they] had not lived."" Tradition, honor, discipline, and excellence were the four pillars of Welton Academy. The lessons enforced by the academy were rigid and based on the realists point of view. The boys were not taught to think for themselves, but simply to obey.

The boys, when forming the Dead Poets Society, embraced the romantic views without any balance. To them, only the moment mattered. They let their passions drive them without letting reason hold the reigns. This led to the suicide of Neil Perry.

"I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to rout all that was not life, and not when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived." - Walden, Henry David Thoreau

Neil's father controlled his life. Neil could never stand up to his father. The only way he was actually able to live was by acting. As he acts out Puck's epilogue in the play Midsummer Night's Dream, he seems to be speaking directly to his father. The only time that he is able to speak to his father seems to be while he was acting. "Neil so desperately wants to have a verse to contribute, but he lacks the words, and can only say them while acting." Because he couldn't control his life at that time he decided he would rather die than to live without his passion. He became a victim to his passions and lived in the moment instead of waiting for the time when he would have full control of his life. In this act, he lacked the balance between romanticism and realism.

"I close my eyes and this image floats beside me

The sweaty-toothed madman with a stare that pounds my brains

His hands reach out and choke me

And all the time he's mumbling