Supporting Transcendentalism In the movie Dead Poet Society the high school students at Welton Academy have a teacher named Mr. Keating. Mr. Keating teaches the boys in his class how to live a life with transcendental values. By doing this, he teaches the boys how to be self-reliant on themselves and how to show individuality. He doesn’t teach his class like other teachers. He doesn’t go straight from the book like every other teacher, instead he actively teaches them how to write poetry and be themselves. Having transcendental values has both good and bad effects on people.
Yes, transcendentalism values give people a sense of individualism, but maybe those people need the input from others. Transcendentalism is a good thing because it gives a person a feel for what they want, and not what other people want; that’s true happiness. Mr. Keating exemplified Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau very well with his transcendental teachings. He teaches his English class, which includes Neil Perry, Todd Anderson, Knox Overstreet, Charlie Dalton, Richard Cameron, Steve Meeks, etc. , important lessons not for English class, but for life itself. One day, Mr.
Keating brought the boys outside into the courtyard and made them walk in circles. This was to let the boys see who they really were by seeing that they all had different ways of stepping. The boys thought this lesson was silly but it really helped all of them see that they shouldn’t live life the way other people want them to, but instead, how they want to live themselves. The way Mr. Keating taught, brought the fun out in the boys. He said in class on day “To be great, is to be misunderstood”(Emerson186) which a quote by Ralph Emerson. The boys took this quote to heart.
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The boys needed someone at Welton Academy that wasn’t so strict and harsh and Mr. Keating was exactly that. The latin teacher McAllister was someone who opposed to Mr. Keating’s teachings. The first day of class for the boys in Mr. Keating’s class, they were ripping out the first section in the book that they had. McAllister saw this from the hallway and intruded into the classroom yelling at the boys to stop the nonsense. Mr. Keating said that he had it under control and McAllister stormed out in shock. The boys thought that there was something weird about Mr. Keating.
They knew he had went to Welton Academy as a child and hated it. The main character, Neil Perry, did some research in the library on Mr. Keating and found something very interesting. He was in a club called The Dead Poet Society. The boys were confused about what they had learned, so they asked him about it. Mr. Keating told them that it was a club that some of his classmates and he started. This club was hidden in the woods where nobody could find them. Mr. Keating and his buddies sat and read poems from all of the famous poets in history such as Emerson, Whitman, and Thoreau.
This is a huge sign of individualism in Mr. Keating’s life. Neil Perry thought of the idea and shared with his friends that he wanted to start the poetry club back up. Mr. Keating gave Neil the book that his group used to read. The opening quote that was to be read before every meeting was “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” (Thoreau 196).
The boys sat there and read poems and talked about life in general.
This Dead Poet Society Club brought them closer not just as classmates, but as friends. Todd and Neil started to become a lot closer as friends and roommates. They talked about what they really wanted to do with their lives and how they thought they were going to do it. For Todd’s birthday, his parents got him the same wooden desk that they had got him last year. He hated it the last year and he hated it when he got it. Neil made him feel better and said that the desk had wings and could fly. They threw the desk over the ledge of the school and watched it fall to the ground chuckling.
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This was an act of nonconformity on Todds part because he refused to take the desk. Neil wanted to be an actor when he got older. He knew that his father would approve. He talked with Todd about what he should do. Todd, with his new attitude towards the transcendentalist value of individualism, said that he should go for it. Neil went out for a part in the school play and got the lead role in it. Two days before the play, Neil’s dad showed up in his dorm room. He told Neil to quit the school play or he will have serious consequences. Neil didn’t drop out of the play because it was very important to him.
This was the first act of “disrespect” and “breaking away” from his father that he had ever done. Going against his father like this shows nonconformity because he refused to obey his father’s laws. Also, this act shows a big step in individualism because Neil wants to do things in his own way. He loves acting and wants to be in the play. Neil’s performance was amazing. The entire student body and a public school near Welton Academy went to the play. His teacher Mr. Keating and Neil’s friends started a standing ovation for Neil when the cast came back on stage.
Neil noticed during the play that his father was there. Neil was scared at first but once the play ended he was glad that he could show his father that he was good at acting. He thought that maybe his dad would let him stay with acting if he thought he was good. After the play Neil packed his stuff up from behind the scenes and went to go see his father. His father wasn’t pleased with him. He told Neil to get in the car. When they got home, Neil’s father told him that he was a disgrace to the family. He told Neil that he was moving Neil out of Welton Academy and to a military academy.
Neil was very unhappy not being able to do what he liked. Though before, Neil had no say in anything, he was unhappy. He remembered a quote from Dead Poet Society meeting that read “We need to be men first, subjects after” (Thoreau 213).
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... the play was to open, Neil's father comes to visit him. Mr. Perry tells Neil to quit the play and concentrate on his studies. Neil ... boys, seize the day!" Robin Williams' character exclaims in the film "Dead Poets Society." Williams portrays passionate English professor John Keating, ... boyfriend. Todd is extremely shy, but tries to come out of his shell. Then there is Neil, who decides to play the ...
Neil knew that life wasn’t worth living if you couldn’t live the life that you want. That night, Neil snuck downstairs to find his father’s gun, and he killed himself. He followed a very famous quote by Emerson that states “If i can not live to how I please, I don’t want to live at all” (Emerson 183).
The news that Neil shot himself devastated his friend Todd and his other friends at school. Mr. Perry and Mr. Nolin talked and immediately blamed Mr. Keating for the death. They brought Neil’s friends in the office and forced them to sign a piece of paper that said Mr. Keating was responsible for the death of Neil because of his transcendentalist teachings. In the last scene of the movie, Mr. Keating comes back into his classroom as Mr. Nolin is teaching and asks to get the rest of his stuff. Mr. Nolin doesn’t mind. While on his way out, Todd Anderson yelps “Mr.
Keating wait, they made me sign it, you gotta believe me”(Weir)! Mr. Keating acknowledged it and shook his head saying that he knows. As Mr. Keating was stepping outside the door, the used to be shy kid, Todd steps on top of his desk and says “O’Captain, My Captain”(Weir).
This was the biggest feel for transcendentalist themes that Todd showed. Mr. Nolin was yelling at Todd to sit down but Todd refused. Other boys in the classroom gradually started to stand saying “O’Captain, My Captain”(Weir).
Mr. Keating looks up at the boys on the desks and says “Thank you boys”(Weir) and exits the room.
By saying thank you to the boys, Mr. Keating realizes that his teachings of transcendentalist values in life came off on the boys in his class in a positive way. The boys learned a lot from Mr. Keating; Todd learned to stand up for what he believed in, Knox fell in love, and Charlie, well Charlie learned to go against what he didn’t believe in in a rather funny way. All of those shows that transcentdentalism isn’t a bad thing necessarily. Having transcendentalist values is a good thing in life because it helps people realize that to be someone happy, is to not be someone else.
