Dead Poets Society and Transcendentalism

"Dead Poets Society" and Transcendentalism

In 1959, the WeltonAcademy is a somewhat old-fashioned but well-respected prep school where education is understood to be a rigorous academic learning program combined with the shaping of the students' characters according to explicitly traditionalist ideals. The film begins with a processional march of the students into the main auditorium of the school, where teachers and parents are awaiting the address of the headmaster Mr. Nolan (Norman Lloyd), who inaugurates the new school year by reminding everyone of the high standards of the institution, and the school's high success rate in sending its graduates to Ivy League universities. Students carry banners on which are embroidered the "four pillars" of Welton's pedagogical program: Tradition, Honor, Discipline, and Excellence.
The WeltonAcademy is located in rural Vermont. The style of its main buildings is imitation-Gothic. The all-male institution is deliberately cut off from the economic and social life of contemporary America. The typical age of its beginning students is sixteen; for most of the adolescents the experience of Welton's rural solitude is somewhat trying. Some call the place "Hellton.” They all groan under the academic work load and many of them feel oppressed by a system that hands out demerits for the slightest infractions of discipline.
During the first scenes in dormitories, hallways, and classrooms we are gradually introduced to the group of students that are at the center of the story: Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard) is a lively A student with natural leadership abilities. He is, however, harshly bullied by his authoritarian father, who tolerates no deviation from the career plans that he has laid out for his son. Neil's room mate Todd Anderson (Ethan Hawk) is a new student; he is shy, insecure, and unhappy. Charlie Dalton (Gale Hansen) is a banker’s son--lively, self-confident, and about to discover the inspiring power of poetry. Further individuals of this group come into focus in time. The "bad guy" character of the lot is Richard Cameron (Dylan Kussman), the unpleasantly ambitious student who believes in authority and school discipline, and who is frequently accused by his fellow-students of "boot licking" and generally being an "asshole." While the other students are occasionally in the mood and willing to evade the rules of the school and to commit pranks, Cameron always warns them to be cautious, because he greatly fears the retributions that may come down on them from their authoritarian teachers and administrators.
After we have seen how some other teachers keep the students in check by means of crushing amounts of homework and threats of possible punishments, we are introduced to the unusual John Keating (Robin Williams), the English teacher who has just been hired, and who displays ideas and a spirit that deviate sharply from the established Welton practices and norms. Right from the start Keating propagates an anti-authoritarian philosophy of life (that of the New England Transcendentalists, as it turns out), and he will soon profile himself not only as a competent teacher, but also as the provocative and inspiring educator of the youngsters of whom he is in charge. During his very first class session Keating demonstrates forcefully that he is not just there to convey academic information, but also to show what students can do with such knowledge in their everyday lives. The first class session is, indeed, not so much a lesson in English literature, but a dramatic philosophical wake-up call:
The verbal form of the call is "Carpe Diem--seize the day!" Keating tells his students to take a look at Robert Herrick's famous lines
Gather the rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
To-morrow will be dying.
"Why does the poet write these lines?" Keating asks, and he eventually answers himself with a flourish: "Because we are food for worms, lads! Because we're only going to experience a limited number of springs, summers, and falls. One day, hard as it is to believe, each and every one of us is going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die!"
To drive home this point Keating makes the students look at the old photographs of former Welton students that decorate the hallways. “They are not that different than any of you, are they? There's hope in their eyes, just like in yours. They believe themselves destined for wonderful things, just like many of you. Well, where are those smiles now, boys? What of that hope?" The students are sobered by what Keating is saying. Keating continues:
Did most of them not wait until it was too late before making their lives into even one iota of what they were capable? In chasing the almighty deity of success did they not squander their boyhood dreams? Most of those gentlemen are fertilizing daffodils now. However, if you get very close, boys, you can hear them whisper. Go ahead, lean in. Hear it? (Whispering) Carpe Diem, lads. Seize the day. Make your lives extraordinary!
When the students leave the building after class, most of them are in thought. Keating’s words are having an effect on their feelings, and Carpe Diem is becoming a firm reference point in their reflections and activities. Some of them will have occasion to quote the maxim while they are pursuing their various goals during the fall term. Only Cameron asks: "You think he'll test us on that stuff?"
Most of the students at Welton are, of course, from well-to-do families; most are destined to follow in the footsteps of their fathers and become doctors, corporate lawyers, or bankers. Considering such prospects it would be natural for everyone to regard such disciplines as English literature as a mere sideline among academic studies, as something like a decoration of a life that is dedicated to more palpable and important matters than poetry and the humanities. Bourgeois parents expect their youngsters to know a little about high culture--in the same spirit in which they expect them to learn table manners and perhaps a foreign language. But no student is encouraged to blow the importance of art and culture out of proportion by devoting more time to poetry than to such “serious” disciplines as mathematics or chemistry.
Keating manages to undermine this widespread conception of the liberal arts; he more or less convinces his students that what seems at first of only secondary importance is in fact at the very center of a well-lived life. "One does not read poetry because it is cute,” he tells his students. “One reads poetry because he is a member of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion! Medicine, Law, Banking--these are necessary to sustain life. But poetry, romance, love, beauty--these are what we stay alive for. ... Poetry is rapture, lads. Without it we are doomed." Behind Keating’s high praise of poetry is Henry David Thoreau’s general revaluation of society’s established priorities: We do not live in order to work, according to the philosophy of Walden, we work in order to live. And we succeed in living extraordinary lives only by staying clear of the ordinary preoccupations with careers and making money—by focusing seriously on those things that make a human existence passionate and radiant.
Keating's teaching methods are unusual—at least by the standards of the 1950s. He does not just tell students that it is important to keep an open, flexible mind, and to look at things from different and changing points of view. Rather, he makes them literally climb on top of a desk and take a look around. This unconventional and physical translation of the run-down expression "changing one’s point of view" will have far more effect on his students' dispositions than any amount of theoretical explanation. Keating also has his students tear those pages out of their textbooks that he exposes as dead letters and intellectual rubbish. A book, in his view, is not a sacred authority, but a tool that ought to be used--or unhesitatingly discarded if found wanting. He frequently reminds them to think for themselves, and not just to accept passively what teachers or textbooks try to tell them.
Neil Perry does a little research on Keating, and he finds out that the English teacher had once himself been a student at Welton, and that he had been involved in a mysterious Dead Poets Society. The students ask Keating what that society had been about.
"The Dead Poets Society,” Keating explains, “was dedicated to sucking the marrow out of life. That phrase is by Thoreau and was invoked at every meeting. A small group of us would meet at a cave and there we would take turns reading Shelley, Thoreau, Whitman, our own verse--any number of poets--and, in the enchantment of the moment, let them work their magic on us." "You mean it was a bunch of guys sitting around reading poetry?" a skeptical Knox Overstreet (Josh Charles) asks. "Both sexes participated, Mister Overstreet," Keating replies with a smile. "And, believe me, we did not simply read. We let it drip from our tongues like honey. Women swooned, spirits soared... Gods were created, gentlemen! Not a bad way to spend an evening!"
The students get involved in a number of extra-curricular pursuits during the fall. Neil gets the role of Puck in Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream," Knox falls in love with a girl from a nearby high school, and Pitts (James Waterston), together with Meeks (Allelon Ruggiero), put together a radio tuner that allows them to listen secretly to Rock 'n' Roll (dubbed by them "Radio Free America"). The whole class plays soccer under the direction of Keating—accompanied by lines of poetry, and to the sounds of the "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's 9th Symphony. The student's most important undertaking, however, was the revival of the Dead Poets Society. Although Keating had warned them that “the present administration would not look favorably” on such an undertaking, the students rediscover the cave in the woods, and during their meetings they experiment with poetry and music, discuss their various pursuits, combine Playboy fold-outs with classical texts, and even manage to bring aboard some girls from the nearby town. Charles Dalton profiles himself as the most imaginative and daring spirit in this group.
A first crisis develops when Charlie manages to smuggle an unauthorized article into the school's newspaper, an anonymous editorial that demands, in the name of the Dead Poets Society, that "girls be admitted to Welton, so we can all stop beating off." An outraged Nolan calls a school-wide meeting during which he threatens to expel everyone involved in that conspiracy, unless the culprits stepped forward voluntarily to make themselves known. Charlie, however, takes the blame for everything, and he tells Nolan that he simply made up the Dead Poets Society--that the group does not exist. He also takes full responsibility for rigging a telephone for the meeting. While Nolan is addressing the school, the telephone rings in Charlie's briefcase. Charlie, taking out the phone, tells Nolan that the call is for the headmaster--personally from God, who supposedly demands that women be admitted to the Academy.
Although most who attend the meeting get a good laugh out of the caper, Charlie pays a harsh price. "Mr. Dalton," Nolan addresses him in his office, "if you think you're the first to try to get thrown out of this school, think again. Others have had similar actions, and they have failed just as surely as you will fail. Assume the position." Nolan beats Charlie’s buttocks with a paddle to the limit of what the young man can stand in terms of humiliation and physical pain. Charlie remains unbroken, however. He does not give away any names, and he returns to his room admired by his peers.
Keating tells Charlie that his “lame stunt” was not wise. "Sucking out the marrow doesn't mean getting the bone stuck in your throat, Charles. ... There is a place for daring and a place for caution as well, and a wise person understands which one is called for. Getting expelled from this school is not an act of wisdom. It's far from perfect, but there are still opportunities to be had here." "Yeah? Like what?" Charlie wants to know. "Like, if nothing else, the opportunity to attend my classes, understand?" Keating replies, and Charlie smiles in agreement.
In spite of such advice in favor of caution, Keating keeps emphasizing a central tenet of his philosophy: determined individualism and non-conformity. On one occasion he brings the whole class outside the building and makes some of them walk around the yard. As the students walk, they more and more adjust their steps to those of the other students, and in a short time the leisurely walk turns into a strident march. Keating begins to clap his hands, and the students all join into the clapping and the rhythm of the marching. After a while Keating stops the exercise and explains:
What this demonstrates is how difficult it is for any of us to listen to our own voice or maintain our own beliefs in the presence of others. ... Lads, there is a great need in all of us to be accepted. However, that need can be like a nasty current, whisking us away unless we're strong and determined swimmers. Don't insist on the separate path simply to be different or contrary, but trust what is unique about yourselves even if it's odd or unpopular.
This Emersonian message to trust themselves as individuals--their own innermost intuitions--inspires the students in various ways. Todd, for example, overcomes his shyness and social isolation by allowing his hidden feelings and ideas to come out into the open as a cathartic expression. Knox is emboldened to declare his love to Chris (Alexandra Powers), even though the odds and convention are overwhelmingly against him. The Emersonian message is most effective, however, in the case of Neil Perry, because it suggests to him to disobey the directives of his father, and to pursue what he most passionately wants: to act in Shakespeare's upcoming play, and to possibly take up acting as a career. When he talks to Keating about it, his teacher advises him to talk to his father and to "let him see who you are." Mr. Perry has to get to know his son, and to understand why acting is so important for him. "To be or not to be, that is the question," Neil had once declaimed to indicate the importance of acting for him. And while he was working on the role of Puck, he had joyfully exclaimed in front of his room mate: "God, for the first time in my whole life I feel completely alive!" Keating wants Neil to explain all this to his father.
Neil does not dare to talk to Mr. Perry, however. He is convinced that his father would neither understand, nor give his required permission for Neil's extra-curricular activity—even though Neil is maintaining As in all his classes. Neil forges the letter of permission and works in the production in secret. His performance during opening night turns out to be outstanding; he receives an enthusiastic ovation, and his friends of the Dead Poets Society carry him off in triumph. When Mr. Perry finds out what has happened, however, he furiously takes Neil home and tells his son that he will enroll him in BradenMilitarySchool. "You are going to Harvard, and you are going to be a doctor," he declares. Mr. Perry has made "too many sacrifices" to provide Neil with the opportunities that he himself had never had, and he will not be deterred from pursuing the best life for Neil that he can think of.
While the Dead Poets, together with Keating and Knox's finally won girlfriend Chris, celebrate the success of the play, Neil fails to come to terms with his painful situation at his parents' home. After Mr. and Mrs. Perry have gone to sleep, he finds his father's revolver and shoots himself.
When the news of his death hits Welton, Neil's close friends have no doubt that Mr. Perry is the real killer. "Even if Mr. Perry didn't shoot him, he killed him. They have to know that," Todd exclaims. Not surprisingly, the school authorities take a different view. Prompted by Mr. Perry, who had disliked Keating and his philosophy for some time, the headmaster promises “a thorough investigation” of the Dead Poets Society and John Keating’s alleged role in it. To avoid negative repercussions for the school, Nolan needs a scapegoat on whom everything can be blamed. His goal is to see him tried in a court of law, if that should be possible, but in any event make sure “that Mr. Keating will never teach again."
Nolan also desires the complete subjugation of the students. They are to demonstrate their submission by their willingness to inform on other students, and by signing a letter that puts the blame for everything on Keating. Nolan gets all the information that he needs from Cameron: "Cameron's a fink," Charlie tells the other Dead Poets. “He's in Nolan's office right now, finking." Cameron, coming out of Nolan’s office, does indeed urge the other students to “cooperate” by blaming their English teacher for leading them astray: "Keating put us up to all this crap, didn't he? If it wasn't for him, Neil would be cozied up in his room right now, studying his chemistry and dreaming of being called doctor." After some furious exchanges Charlie, full of rage and contempt, strikes Cameron in the face, thereby insuring his own immediate expulsion from the school.