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Dead Poets Society: Film Review and Analysis

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Dead Poets Society Summary & Study Guide

Dead Poets Society Summary & Study Guide Description

“Dead Poets Society” is the story about a group of junior year boys at the Welton Academy, an exclusive private school for boys. The story unfolds during the opening ceremony for the new school year. The indoctrination is held in the school’s chapel. To the melodious sound of bagpipe music, four boys enter the chapel carrying banners. Each banner is inscribed with a word representing what the school stands for: Honor, Discipline, Excellence and Tradition. Parents seating in the pews are smiling, excited and proud of their sons.

Todd Anderson is a new student that year. He suffers from low self-esteem brought on by the outstanding academic performance of his older brother, Jeffrey, who was also a student at Welton. Todd feels, with good reason, that his parents favor Jeffrey and that he is little more than an afterthought. The Dean is less than tactful when he reminds Todd that he has big shoes to fill. Just what Todd needed to hear! Neil Perry welcomes Todd as his new roommate. Neil is a positive young boy whose domineering father has a future all planned out for Neil, but it’s not the future that Neil wants.

The conservative private school is steeped in tradition. But that tradition is about to have a huge challenge from one of its former students. John Keating has been hired by the school to become the new English teacher. He was a brilliant student, natural leader and a Rhodes Scholar. John always marched to the beat of a different drummer, a trait of the very bright.

John Keating basically turns aside the school’s curriculum and teaches the boys about poetry and life. He reads the poetry he loves and explains to the boys how it applies to real life. He encourages them to abandon tradition and be non-conformists and free spirits. A fellow teacher warns Keating that he may be setting the boys up for disappointment because not everyone can be an artist. Keating tells the teacher he missed the point. He is not telling the boys to be artists but to be free thinkers.

When the boys find out that Mr. Keating had formed a secret club called the Dead Poets Society when he was a student at Welton, they want to know all about it. Keating tells them that he and his friends established the club and that only dead poets could be members. Keating and his friends were just pledges. They met in a cave and read poetry, created gods and vowed to suck the marrow out of life. The boys are inspired to revamp the club and begin meeting in the same cave as Keating and his peers did years before.

When the school administration gets wind of the secret club – something that is against regulations – the dean promises to suspend any student who is a member. The dean is beginning to regret that he hired Keating because of his unorthodox way of teaching. He fears that it can come to no good end. When tragedy strikes, Keating is the perfect fall guy on which to place the blame. Keating is terminated over the incident. On his last day as the boys shout that Keating wasn’t to blame, the boys all stand on their desks in solidarity with him.

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Dead Poets Society Summary

Lights, camera, action.

It's the beginning of the school year for a group of students at Hellton—er Welt on—Academy, a prestigious all-boys boarding school in 1950s Vermont. Ah, back-to-school season: that wonderful time of fresh new notebooks, squeaky pink erasers, and existential dread.

Among the students feeling the end-of-summertime blues: the shy newcomer Todd and his roommate, Neil, both of whom (along with the other boys) have to sit through a lecture by the stern and humorless Headmaster Nolan about the many merits of their fancy-shmancy Welton.

At least one interesting thing happens in this first meeting, though: the boys are introduced to their new English teacher, Mr. Keating. But more on that later.

After meeting Neil and Todd's parents, it's clear that the two boys have a lot in common. Neil's parents plan for him to have every advantage that they didn't, so he's on the fast track to medical school (whether he likes it or not).

And Todd's parents just want him to be like his older brother, a Welton alumnus who made quite a mark and has gone on to be super-successful.

So no pressure for either of them, right? No pressure at all.

The two boys bond quickly, and Todd is welcomed into Neil's group of buddies: Knox the romantic, Cameron the goody-goody, Charles the jokester, and the dynamic duo Meeks and Pitts, who are constantly conspiring to build a radio (apparently, radios are a no-no at Welton).

The first few days of Welton life seem to go normally: boring books to buy, lectures to attend, hours to watch tick away. But when the group gets to Mr. Keating's poetry class, things start to shake up a bit. He shocks them by getting the class to leave the room and observe the pictures of long-dead alumni that line the hallways. He admonishes them to live fully, seizing every opportunity to experience life.

He even instructs them to address him as "captain," after the famous Walt Whitman poem " O Captain My Captain ."

And that's just the first class. In the weeks that follow, Mr. Keating encourages the boys to find their own voices and look at things a different way. (One way he demonstrates this: he has them stand on his desk in order to see things from a different perspective.)

Mr. Keating also encourages them to consider poetry, rarely a beloved subject, as a valuable and important part of life, and wants them to learn to think for themselves about what it all means.

The boys find this pretty stirring, each in his own way. Todd, ever the shy guy, begins to get the guts to speak up and make himself heard. Knox is inspired to pursue the girl he loves, Chris, who has a boyfriend. And Neil decides to truly seize the day and tries out for the school play, despite his father's orders.

Mr. Keating's influence is also felt in another way: he inspires them to re-form the long-dead Dead Poets Society, a secret group of students who sneak off campus to read and experience poetry together.

But not everyone is a fan of the whole "seizing the day" thing. Headmaster Nolan and some of the other faculty members are pretty skeptical about Mr. Keating's shtick, and they don't think the boys should be encouraged to think or act so freely. So when Charlie—ever the prankster—writes a note to the school paper encouraging the admittance of girls to Welton and signs it "Dead Poets Society," the administration comes down hard on the English teacher (and the students). Headmaster Nolan becomes obsessed with finding out just who the members of the DPS are.

It all gets a little out of hand.

Still, the boys carry on with their commitment to live fully. Knox finally gets a date with Chris (after getting punched out by her boyfriend), and Todd overcomes his shyness to read a poem in front of the class. Neil gets the lead in the school play and totally rocks it, to the cheers of his fellow DPS members and the rest of the audience.

One person who ain't cheering? His father, who watches from the back of the theater. Neil's dad takes him home and tells him that he is enrolling Neil in military school. No more Welton, no more theater, no more Dead Poets Society. It's military school or bust.

As you may have guessed, Neil doesn't take this well. Instead of living a life without inspiration, he decides to take his life. After donning his Puck crown one last time, he uses his father's revolver to commit suicide.

The boys are devastated, as is the rest of Welton. Headmaster Nolan blames the Dead Poets Society and Mr. Keating's teaching style for Neil's death, and becomes even more obsessed with finding out just who is behind the secret group. When Cameron spills the beans and signs a statement blaming Mr. Keating for everything, the rest of the boys feel like they have to follow suit.

Adios , Mr. Keating.

But that doesn't mean they didn't learn anything. When Mr. Keating comes to class to collect his things, Todd stands on his desk to salute his "captain" one last time. After a few moments, most of the class does, too, despite the threats from Headmaster Nolan.

It's their final salute to their teacher, and it reminds him (and them) that his lessons live on.

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"Dead Poets Society" is a collection of pious platitudes masquerading as a courageous stand in favor of something: doing your own thing, I think. It's about an inspirational, unconventional English teacher and his students at "the best prep school in America" and how he challenges them to question conventional views by such techniques as standing on their desks. It is, of course, inevitable that the brilliant teacher will eventually be fired from the school, and when his students stood on their desks to protest his dismissal, I was so moved, I wanted to throw up.

Peter Weir's film makes much noise about poetry, and there are brief quotations from Tennyson, Herrick, Whitman and even Vachel Lindsay, as well as a brave excursion into prose that takes us as far as Thoreau's Walden. None of these writers are studied, however, in a spirit that would lend respect to their language; they're simply plundered for slogans to exort the students toward more personal freedom. At the end of a great teacher's course in poetry, the students would love poetry; at the end of this teacher's semester, all they really love is the teacher.

The movie stars Robin Williams as the mercurial John Keating, teacher of English at the exclusive Welton Academy in Vermont. The performance is a delicate balancing act between restraint and schtick.

For much of the time, Williams does a good job of playing an intelligent, quick-witted, well-read young man. But then there are scenes in which his stage persona punctures the character - as when he does impressions of Marlon Brando and John Wayne doing Shakespeare.

There is also a curious lack of depth to his character compared with such other great movie teachers as Miss Jean Brodie and Professor Kingsfield. Keating is more of a plot device than a human being.

The story is also old stuff, recycled out of the novel and movie " A Separate Peace " and other stories in which the good die young and the old simmer in their neurotic and hateful repressions. The key conflict in the movie is between Neil ( Robert Sean Leonard ), a student who dreams of being an actor, and his father ( Kurtwood Smith ), who orders his son to become a doctor and forbids him to go onstage. The father is a strict, unyielding taskmaster, and the son, lacking the will to defy him, kills himself. His death would have had a greater impact for me if it had seemed like a spontaneous human cry of despair, rather than like a meticulously written and photographed set piece.

Other elements in the movie also seem to have been chosen for their place in the artificial jigsaw puzzle. A teenage romance between one of the Welton students and a local girl is given so little screen time, so arbitrarily, that it seems like a distraction. And I squirmed through the meetings of the "Dead Poets Society," a self-consciously bohemian group of students who hold secret meetings in the dead of night in a cave near the campus.

The society was founded by Keating when he was an undergraduate, but in its reincarnate form it never generates any sense of mystery, rebellion or daring. The society's meetings have been badly written and are dramatically shapeless, featuring a dance line to Lindsay's "The Congo" and various attempts to impress girls with random lines of poetry. The movie is set in 1959, but none of these would-be bohemians have heard of Kerouac, Ginsberg or indeed of the beatnik movement.

One scene in particular indicates the distance between the movie's manipulative instincts and what it claims to be about. When Keating is being railroaded by the school administration (which makes him the scapegoat for his student's suicide), one of the students acts as a fink and tells the old fogies what they want to hear. Later, confronted by his peers, he makes a hateful speech of which not one word is plausible except as an awkward attempt to supply him with a villain's dialogue. Then one of the other boys hits him in the jaw, to great applause from the audience. The whole scene is utterly false and seems to exist only so that the violence can resolve a situation that the screenplay is otherwise unwilling to handle.

"Dead Poets Society" is not the worst of the countless recent movies about good kids and hidebound, authoritatian older people. It may, however, be the most shameless in its attempt to pander to an adolescent audience. The movie pays lip service to qualities and values that, on the evidence of the screenplay itself, it is cheerfully willing to abandon. If you are going to evoke Henry David Thoreau as the patron saint of your movie, then you had better make a movie he would have admired. Here is one of my favorite sentences from Thoreau's Walden, which I recommend for serious study by the authors of this film: " . . . instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them." Think about it.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Dead Poets Society (1989)

130 minutes

Josh Charles as Knox Overstreet

Dylan Kussman as Richard Cameron

Robert Sean Leonard as Neil Perry

Robin Williams as John Keating

Gale Hansen as Charlie Dalton

Ethan Hawke as Todd Anderson

Produced by

• Tony Thomas
• Steven Haft
• Paul Junger Witt
• Maurice Jarre
• William Anderson

Directed by

• Tom Schulman

Photography by

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Dead Poets Society | Main Themes

Dead Poets Society is a timeless masterwork that still impacts readers’ mind. This essay examines the deep issues present in this literary masterpiece, providing readers with an insight into the thought-provoking concepts that enthrall readers of all ages.

Table of Contents

Main Themes

Seize the day – carpe diem:.

The core idea of this work is carpe diem, encouraging people to enjoy each moment. In today’s fast-paced world, this theme’s encouragement to live truthfully and seize life’s opportunities is still applicable. The novel’s characters struggle to follow their genuine inclinations and break away from societal expectations.

Conformity vs. Individuality:

A major subject that emerges throughout the story is the conflict between individuality and conformity. Readers are encouraged to consider the significance of remaining true to oneself as the characters negotiate the strict expectations of society and their families. Despite social pressure, this topic is a potent reminder to accept individuality.

Poetry and Literature’s Transforming Power:

This work highlights the transforming Power of poetry and Literature. Students learn how words can inspire, question, and stir thought from their lively English teacher, Mr. Keating. This theme invites readers to recognize the enormous influence that Literature may have on influencing viewpoints and promoting personal development.

Legacy and Influence:

The novel’s narrative is deeply entwined with the idea of legacy. The thought of making a lasting impression weighs heavily on the characters, and they start to doubt the direction others have set for them. This subject encourages readers to shape their futures by getting them to consider their own goals and the legacy they hope to leave behind.

Questioning Authority:

Dead Poets Society, questions the idea of deferring to authority without question. Motivated by Mr. Keating, the students challenge social norms and pose questions to those in positions of authority. This subject fosters a sense of autonomy and the bravery to question the current quo by challenging readers to assess the institutions around them critically.

A group of students at an all-boys prep school forms the Dead Poets Society under their English teacher’s influence, challenging traditional norms and exploring the power of poetry.

Carpe Diem,” or “Seize the Day,” is a famous line from this work, emphasizing the importance of living in the moment.

The melancholy in this work stems from the conflicts between the students and societal expectations, culminating in a tragic event.

The moral story of this work revolves around individuality, challenging conformity, and the impact of inspiring teachers on students’ lives.

N. H. Kleinbaum wrote the novelization of the movie, but the original screenplay for Dead Poets Society was penned by Tom Schulman.

In summary, “Dead Poets Society” offers a timeless examination of the human condition through its underlying themes. These themes, which include the appeal to seize the moment, the conflict between originality and conformity, and the transformational potential of literature, are relevant to all age groups.

Dead Poets Society Summary Read more…

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Dead Poets Society

53 pages • 1 hour read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

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Finding Your Voice

One of the main themes in Dead Poets Society is about finding your voice . This is applicable to all of the members of the Dead Poets Society, but it is perhaps the most relevant to the character of Todd Anderson . From the beginning of the novel, Todd is presented as struggling with speaking in front of others. When he receives his extracurricular assignment from Headmaster Nolan, he wants to ask to be on the rowing team instead of doing soccer. When he gets the chance to speak up, however, “Todd [stands] silent. He struggle[s] to say something, but the words just [won’t] come out” (11). As a result, he is kept on the soccer team instead of being allowed to row, like he wants.

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Dead Poets Society

By peter weir, dead poets society summary and analysis of ripping out the textbook intro - todd chasing neil around their room.

The next shot is of Keating’s class, where from his desk Keating tells Neil to read from the introduction to their textbook. The text details a way of mathematically measuring the excellence of a poem based on perfection and importance. At first, Keating illustrates the lesson on the board, which Cameron copies into his notebook. Keating then calls it “excrement” (Cameron crosses it out in his notes) and instructs the boys to rip the entire introduction out of their books. After hesitating, the boys begin doing so, beginning with Charles Dalton. Keating’s voice rises as he insists that they destroy the textbook’s entire introduction. He goes to his office to get a trash bin as the boys rip away, and while he’s gone, another teacher named Mr. McAllister sees the commotion from the hall and comes in yelling. He apologizes and retreats when Keating returns with the bin, saying he didn’t think Keating was there. Keating tells the boys to “keep ripping” as McAllister leaves, saying that they must learn to think for themselves and “savor words and language,” though some students are skeptical that poetry matters when they plan to become doctors and lawyers. Keating huddles them up and explains that while science and medicine are “noble pursuits,” art, poetry, love and the like are what the human race stays alive for. He quotes from Whitman’s “O Me! O Life!” The boys are enraptured, including Todd.

In the next scene, the students and faculty of Dalton say a prayer over their lunch and sit to eat. Mr. McAllister sits beside Mr. Keating and warns him that his lesson that day involving textbook ripping was misguided, as teaching the boys that they can be artists will make them hate Keating when they realize they’re not. Keating argues that the boys should be freethinkers, but McAllister disagrees. He quotes Lord Alfred Tennyson, saying that only men without dreams are happy. Keating fires back with an original line, saying that only in dreams can men truly be free.

At their table, Neil shows the others an old annual from Keating’s time at Welton. They see that he was a member of something called the Dead Poets Society . A teacher reprimands them and they put the annual away. Outside on the Welton lawns between the campus and lake, Neil, Todd, and the others catch a strolling Mr. Keating’s attention with an “O captain, my captain!” They show him his old annual and ask him about the Dead Poets Society. Swearing the boys to secrecy, he tells them that the Society was dedicated to “sucking the marrow out of life,” a quote from Thoreau that its members used to say at the start of each meeting. They would gather at the old Indian cave nearby and read from famous poets as well as their own compositions. He returns the book to them and jests that they should burn it before walking away whistling. The bell calls the boys back inside, and as they go, Neil suggests they go to the cave that night. Dalton is on board, while Cameron is aghast at the thought. Todd appears conflicted. As Dr. Hagar ushers them to class, Neil tries to confirm that they’re all going to go. Pitts is also conflicted, but they tell him he’s coming. They run inside together, with Dalton reminding Knox that Chris will swoon over him if he comes.

In the next scene, the boys whisper over a map during a study session. Mr. McAllister reprimands them and tells them to sit down. Neil comes over to Todd and tries to convince him to come with them, though Todd is extremely hesitant to read aloud in front of the other boys. Neil tells him he doesn’t have to read, and then goes to the other boys to confirm that that’s okay before Todd can protest. Mr. McAllister tells them all to shut up.

In the washroom, Neil tells Todd that he’s “in” as the boys prepare for bed. Dr. Hagar yells for the boys to be quiet. Neil goes to his room and retrieves a flashlight from his closet, then opens his book “Five Centuries of Verse” and reads the handwritten quote from Thoreau that Keating mentioned earlier. In the next shot, the boys' shadows move through the halls past the painting with which the film opened. Dr. Hagar seems to hear something. The boys throw treats to a dog in the hallway. Dr. Hagar comes into the hall with a flashlight but sees nothing. The boys sneak out the door and run cloaked into the night as eerie music fills the scene. They head through the forest and eventually come upon the old Indian cave.

They light a very smoky fire (a hole in the cave’s roof lets out the smoke). Neil calls the meeting to order, mentioning that Todd will take minutes because he prefers not to read, and reads the opening Thoreau quote. The boys pile snacks onto a jacket in the center of them. Neil tells a story of a woman who pieces together a jigsaw puzzle only to see that the image it formed is of herself finishing the puzzle, with a demented face at her window. Cameron tries to tell a story, but the boys have all heard it before. Pitts recites a poem about a man slitting his wife’s throat, and then Charles Dalton pulls out a poster of a naked woman and recites an original poem that he’s written on the back of it. Neil reads from Tennyson, and then Meeks reads a poem in rhythm which gets the boys clapping and chanting in a circle. They leave the cave, still chanting, and run back to Welton. They are silent and hooded again as they approach the school and a bell tolls.

In Keating’s class, Keating helps the boy expand their vocabularies. He asks Todd to contribute, but Todd is silent. He gets the boys excited about reading Shakespeare by impersonating famous actors delivering the lines. He then stands on his desk and tells the boys that they must always look at things from a different perspective. He has the boys come stand on his desk one at a time, telling them they must find their own voices and dare to break new ground. As the bell rings, he gives them their next assignment: compose an original poem to read in front of the class the following week. He singles out Todd, telling him that he knows how much this assignment scares him, and shuts the light off, leaving Todd in the dark atop his desk as the other boys chuckle.

The next shots feature the boys engaging in various activities. Oars slice through the lake as they row crew. Meeks and Pitts dance on a roof, having finally gotten their radio to work. Two boys fence through the trees. Then we switch to Todd writing his original poem in bed, with the radio music muffled in the distance. Neil comes in excitedly and shows Todd a poster for auditions for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, saying he really wants to audition. He is beside himself with eagerness to become an actor, though his father will protest. Todd suggests he call him and ask, and Neil becomes angry, knowing that his father won’t like it. They change subjects, talking about why Todd isn’t inspired by Keating like the rest of them. Todd says he isn’t able to capture attention like Neil and asks Neil to leave him alone, but Neil says no, grabs Todd’s poem from him, and reads it aloud as Todd chases him. Cameron comes in to investigate and Neil grabs his books and makes him join in the chase. The hall fills with boys watching the shenanigans.

Mr. McAllister and Mr. Keating share a telling exchange over lunch after Mr. McAllister witnesses Keating’s students tearing apart their textbooks. McAllister’s warning that dreams will make the boys unhappy exemplifies the mentality of the Welton administration: that the boys should focus on doing what is practical, rather than trying to change what is possible. It’s perhaps unsurprising that Keating calls McAllister a cynic, but McAllister’s response that he’s a realist illuminates just how certain he and the other faculty are that the only thing in store for the boys is boring lives following the footsteps of their academic predecessors. Keating’s vision for them, by contrast, is much more inspired.

At the beginning of the first meeting of the Dead Poets Society, the boys read Thoreau’s famous quote, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately…” The quote comes from Thoreau’s 1854 book Walden , which details the more than two years he spent alone in a small cabin by Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. The quote refers to living simply and with purpose, and reflects what the boys themselves do through the Society: going to the woods to recite poetry to one another, and eventually expressing themselves in other ways, including storytelling, dancing, and playing the saxophone. Many of the boys feel that the academic shackles that hold them are unjust, and some, especially Neil, fear that when it's their time to die and begin "fertilizing daffodils," as Mr. Keating so glibly put it, that they will "discover that [they] had not lived." The quote therefore highlights a parallel between the boys' and Thoreau's own desire to be self-reliant and deliberate about their lives.

Robin Williams’ comedic side, for which he was already famous when Dead Poets Society was released, comes out during his class on Shakespeare, when he reads famous lines in the voices of prominent actors. Despite delivering what has been called a stirring, dramatic performance in a more serious role like Keating, Williams’ humorous tendencies help him to portray a teacher of great wit and theatrics.

Keating’s lesson about perspective in which he has the boys stand on his desk to see things differently is one of many examples of how he encourages them to think differently than the more traditional Welton values would have them do. Nolan, McAllister, and the others believe in teaching the boys what they should think and believe, whereas Keating demonstrates through this lesson that he wants the exact opposite for the boys.

Keating's powerful influence on many of his students' personalities and aspirations begins to come across concretely through Neil's enthusiasm about auditioning for A Midsummer Night's Dream . In the first part of the film, the viewer saw how callous and unyielding Neil's father is with regard to Neil's personal endeavors and goals. Neil vocalizes his certainty that his father won't approve of acting as either an extracurricular or career path. Nevertheless, he displays determination to audition (despite Todd momentarily deterring his momentum), a testament to how passionately he feels about it—a passion that Mr. Keating helped to spark.

Dead Poets Society Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Dead Poets Society is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

What’s the theme of dead poets society rip it out

Do you mean the scene where Keeting asks his class to rip out the Pritchard text? He wants them to avoid conformity by ripping a text that treats poetry like a math equation.

Explore Keating's influence on his students and how his encouragement of originality and "carpe diem" affect them.

I can't write your essay for you but can make a general comment. One of Keating’s main, overarching lessons for the boys is the idea of “seizing the day”—that is, making the most of the time they have now and taking advantage of the opportunities...

According to Pitts, all of the girls go for “jerks”. Do you agree with his assessment? Why or why not?

Well, this is a pretty subjective answer from personal experience. Many many years ago I was captain of the chess team in high school. Lets just say girls were not clamouring to wear my jacket. The hockey players,they used to throw pucks at our...

Study Guide for Dead Poets Society

Dead Poets Society study guide contains a biography of director Peter Weir, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Dead Poets Society
• Dead Poets Society Summary
• Character List
• Director's Influence

Essays for Dead Poets Society

Dead Poets Society literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of the film Dead Poets Society directed by Peter Weir.

• Authority Against Individualism: Dead Poets Society and The Rabbits
• Dead Poets Society: The Powerful Thought of Individuality
• Identity in Dead Poets Society and Frost's Poetry
• Exploring Transitions: Educating Rita and Dead Poets Society

Wikipedia Entries for Dead Poets Society

• Introduction

Dead Poets Society Analysis Essay

Lost and Found In todays society teenagers are struggling to be themselves, because of the pressure of everyone around them trying to make them someone else. In Dead Poets Society Todd Anderson shows the positive effects of self-esteem, as he develops from a self-conscious young man to growing more confident with the help of Neil Perry and Mr. Keating, and finally to demonstrate great self-esteem in one final act. It is important to know that it’s easy to follow in others’ footsteps, but nobody else’s steps lead exactly where one is going. By trying to copy and replicate someone elses legacy, one won’t get to their full potential when trying to find the purpose of life. It’s essential that one will figure this sooner than later. In the…

Todd finds himself emerging from his self-conscious shell after being faced with the death of his roommate and close friend. Although the lack of positive self-esteem can be symbolized more when Neil dies after he is reminded of living a life that was chosen for him rather than what he would choose for himself. Also from the idea of when not being who one is, is as good as being dead. So it is quite the milestone when Todd begins to find the courage and confidence that was always inside of himself when he rebelliously stands on top of his desk. Thus encouraging nearly all of his classmates to follow as he risks punishment once reciting, “Oh captain, my captain” (Dead Poets Society) just as Mr. Keating was leaving, in the end scene of the movie. He shows that even though we won’t ever really be completely happy, but will be okay in the long run. The importance of individuality is an essential characteristic for people all across the world, as Todd Anderson portrays as the perfect character in Dead Poets Society to teach others how one can’t be anyone but oneself. In the end, he came to terms with this idea and even though he won’t be completely fixed he has finally made it to the right path. And -Which would also compared with the teenagers in today’s society- as long as he stays true to himself any plans he has for his future are…

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