Examples Of Individualism In Dead Poets Society

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In the movie Dead Poets’ Society, they cover all of the five I’s of Romanticism. One of the most prominent ones is imagination. During the Romantic Era, imagination was used as a way to explore the different and remote worlds. All of the characters live in an imaginary world either to escape their homelife or better themselves to get something that they want. For example, Neil imagines himself as Puck from A Midsummer’s Night Dream in order to escape the suffocating grip that his father has over his life. When he is Puck on stage he feels liberated because his father has no control over his life. A negative example of imagination is presented when Knox pretends to be Mutt Sander’s brother at Chris’s party to fit in with the public school crowd. …show more content…

Keating is the main influence of individualism, which is the idea that we are unique and there is nothing wrong with that, in the movie Dead Poets’ society. All of the teachers at Welton were straitlaced and do not want the kids to be their own person. The goal of the school and of the children's’ parents is to prepare the kids to go to ivy league schools and become either lawyers or doctors. However, Mr. Keating is the opposite of these teachers. For example, in class one day he asks some of the boys to walk around in a circle. After a while, he stops them because they had become conformists. He explains how, at first, all the boys have their own unique strides, but after a while they all started to walk the same way. He is trying to show them that you do not have to walk the same way as anyone else because you are perfect just the way you are. A negative example of individualism is showed when Neil tried to stand up to his father and ask if he could be unique and act. His father refused to allow him to act and took it so far that he pulled Neil out of Welton and enrolled him in military school. Neil could not live with the his father’s constant control over his life and he ended up killing himself. Individualism was used in Dead Poets’ Society to show that it is better to be unique than like everyone else. …show more content…

Inspiration is the idea that you need to live life in the moment and be spontaneous. The main group of boys in this movie create a dead poets’ society as a way to suck the marrow out of life. All of the students at Welton are sent here to study and be prepared for a successful life after high school so they do not really enjoy life because they are constantly studying. Since the creation of the dead poets’ society Neil, Knox, Charlie, Todd, Minx, and all the other boys have something to look forward to and be happy about. When the boys would read the poems they feel the author’s magic flowing through them and that gives them the break that they need during their stressful lives. A negative example of inspiration was when Charlie felt a compelling need to write an anonymous article about how Welton should permit girls to be accepted into the dead poets’ society. The headmaster caught wind of this and Charlie almost got expelled. Inspiration can be positive or negative depending on what it is attracting you to do. Overall, inspiration was used in the Dead Poets’ Society to give the Welton boys some titillation.

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