Dead Poets Society is one of my favorite films, and not just for the pretty landscapes of burnt red and copper trees, or long framing shots of the flocks of birds that fly across a foggy sky. The message is not only beautifully autumnal, but it also delivers a challenging message. Dead Poets Society asks us to seize the day, make our life count, and contribute our own verse to the “powerful play” of life.
If you’ve never seen Dead Poets Society and have no idea what I’m talking about, let’s do a quick overview. The 1959 school year at Welton Academy, a prestigious all-boys school in Vermont, begins like any other. The story follows seven boys—all from wealthy, distinguished families—whose are destined to become future doctors, lawyers, and businessmen. Their academic lives and careers have been planned for them—right down to their extracurriculars. When the new English professor, Professor Keating (Robin Williams), arrives at the academy, none of the students expect him to teach any differently than the rest of the rigorous professors. But, as they soon discover, Mr. Keating has more to share with his students than the mechanics of analyzing poetry.
Over the course of the film, there are only seven classroom scenes; yet through them, Mr. Keating teaches us his philosophy of life and his approach to art, beauty, and poetry. Before Keating arrived at Welton University, each of the boys “lived lives of quiet desperation.” And yet, with Keating’s influence, they find the courage to “suck the marrow out of life,” in the words of Henry David Thoreau, and make their lives extraordinary.
(Be ye warned: spoilers ahead)
1. Carpe Diem
“Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.”
On the first day of class, Mr. Keating asks his students why poets use tones of desperation and hurry when referring to life. The reason, he tells them, is because “believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die.” Life is short, and he wants them to make it count. This is what we’re after, Mr. Keating seems to tell them, and poetry will show us how to get there. And so, “carpe diem” becomes their mantra, their thesis, their mission statement for the year ahead.
2. Understanding Poetry
“Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life…but poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
Nothing sends a bigger message than ripping up something you disagree with. That’s why, on the second day of class, Mr. Keating asks his students to rip out the introduction of their poetry anthology. “Understanding Poetry” is the name of the introduction, and it instructs a method of measuring the form and meaning of a poem on a scale to determine its “greatness”—which, as Mr. Keating reminds them, is absolute rubbish. Poetry was never meant to be analyzed; it shouldn’t be measured on a scale. He wants his students to think for themselves, to savor art.
“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute,” he tells them, “We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion.” It’s that passion—in poetry, beauty, romance, and love—that makes life worth living. By ripping out the guide to analyzing poetry, the students are left with only the poetry itself in all its wild, raw, passionate glory.
Before finishing class, Mr. Keating leaves them with one last challenging question, quoting from Walt Whitman’s poem “O Me! O Life!”: “’That you are here—that life exists, and identity,/That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.’ What will your verse be?”
3. A Different Point of View
“Just when you think you know something, you have to look at it in a different way.”
Remember when you were a kid, climbing on furniture or cresting treetops, and it felt like you were seeing the world for the first time? Somewhere along our lives, we tend to forget to see the world as being full of possibility.That’s why, in the third lesson, Mr. Keating stands up on his desk as a reminder to both himself and his students that they must always be looking for a new perspective. “See, the world looks very different from up here,” he invites. “Don’t believe me? Come see for yourselves.”
When I watched this scene, I thought of how travel is important to me for this very reason—because it renews my sense of discovery. When you travel somewhere new, suddenly you’re walking unfamiliar streets, and you have no idea what’s around the corner. It’s terrifying and liberating all at once. I remember standing in the London National Gallery, realizing how differently a painting could look depending on where you stand: beneath it, in front of it, across the room, from the side.
The same can be said for poetry. Your interpretation depends on where you stand; it could even be influenced by where you are when you read the poem, or the time of day, or what you’ve been thinking about. A poem that seemed dry as bones to you yesterday could today come to life and ring devastatingly true in your heart. The same goes for novels, stories, movies, song lyrics. Our world is beautifully complex; there are infinite perspectives of any one thing.
“Thoreau said most men lead lives of quiet desperation. Don’t be resigned to that,” says Mr. Keating. As the boys take turns seeing the classroom from a new point of view, Mr. Keating implores them to find their own voice, their own new perspective on life; to always be reimagining and rediscovering the world.
4. Kick the Ball
“To me, sport is actually a chance for us to have other human beings push us to excel.”
Poetry becomes far more meaningful when yelled with all the force of a barbaric “YAWP.” To best demonstrate this to his students, Mr. Keating takes his class outdoors to the soccer field. He has each student read a line of poetry and, with as much passion as they can muster, kick a soccer ball across a field. Between yelling out encouragement, Keating puts on a record—because, well, background music is essential to feeling the power of poetry.
5. “As Long as it’s Original”
“[Todd] thinks that everything inside of him is worthless and embarrassing…well, I think you’re wrong. I think there is something inside of you that is worth a great deal.”
We all have something worth saying.It’s hard to share the vulnerable parts of ourselves, but often those are the pieces that people resonate with. Despite the terror he knows it will inflict, Keating asks his students to share an original poem with the class. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just authentic.
One by one the students come up and read aloud, until it comes to Todd Anderson’s turn. He confesses that he didn’t write a poem. Rather than fail him or embarrass him, Keating is determined to prove to Todd that he has something worth sharing with the world. He pulls Todd in front of class and asks him to give an example of a Walt Whitman’s “barbaric YAWP!” Then, under pressure from Keating, Todd composes a spontaneous impromptu poem that surprises everyone with its depth and meaning. It’s a powerful moment of the meaning, if only because Todd finally finds his own voice and realizes his potential.
6. Take a Stroll
“We all have a great need for acceptance, but you have to trust that your beliefs are unique, your own, even though others may think them odd or unpopular.”
It comes, in the end, to the trouble of conformity. We like to be liked. We want to be accepted, even at the cost of our originality. But we’ll never share anything worthwhile if we don’t risk society’s acceptance.
Out in the courtyard, during the sixth lesson, Keating asks three of the boys to walk around the courtyard. In a matter of seconds, they fall into a steady march and everyone begins clapping along. When they’ve finished, Keating explains the exercise—how “everyone started with their own stride, their own pace” and eventually fell into a conformed rhythm, proving “the difficulty in maintaining your own beliefs in the face of others.”
7. O Captain, My Captain
While Keating’s lessons are certainly inspiring, the true impact of this film comes from watching the boys begin to seize the day in their own lives. Over the course of the 1959-60 school year, each of the four central students gets their own starring moment, their own time to “seize the day” and contribute a verse to the story. Neil Perry, the charismatic leader of the boys, auditions for and receives the lead role in a Shakespeare production. Knox Overstreet, the romantic, finds the courage to go after the girl of his dreams. Charlie Dalton, the rebel, realizes the value of loyalty. The shy newcomer, Todd Anderson, learns his worth and finds the courage to make a stand for what he believes in.
And yet, the film isn’t interested in painting a perfect picture of the importance of pursuing your dreams. Instead, it acknowledges the tension between romance and reality; a dichotomy made more impactful by the climax when Neil Perry finds himself torn between his father’s expectations and his true passion for acting. Feeling trapped, Neil commits suicide because “what we stay alive for”—poetry, beauty, romance, love, and in his case, acting—has been taken away from him.
Seizing the day doesn’t come without consequences. When the school blames Keating for Neil Perry’s suicide, the boys are faced with the ultimate test of conformity: agree to sign a paper convicting Keating, or be expelled from Welton Academy. Dalton refuses, and is expelled. Keating is dismissed from his position. Yet in the final scene, Todd and the rest of the remaining members of the Dead Poets Society find the courage to salute Keating as he leaves, knowing they will never forget him and all that he taught.
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.
Walden, Henry David Thoreau
<3 Olivia Grace
