Mr. Keating In Dead Poet Society

630 Words2 Pages

Someone once said, “Embrace your individuality. Love what you love without worrying about judgement”. By saying this they mean, someone might not be doing what everyone else is doing by do not worry about what they think. Mr. Keating in Dead Poet Society, shows some of the same Romantic/ Transcendentalist ideas that Ralph Waldo Emerson does in Self Reliance. Two Romantic/ Transcendentalist philosophies that represent Mr. Keating beliefs the spirit of the individual and that people are inherently good and should follow their own beliefs. The first Romantic/Transcendentalist philosophy is celebrating the spirit of the individual. Emerson in Self Reliance writes, “Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow think in hard words again, …show more content…

Emerson in Self Reliance writes, “You will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it” (Emerson). A person knows themselves better than anyone else knows them. A person can not live off of what other people think is best for them but what they think is the best for themselves. One example from Dead Poet Society is when Mr. Keating tells the boys to rip out the introduction to their books. Mr. Keating believes that they need to consider their own feelings about poetry and literature and not what the authors of the book think about it. This shows that a person's personal opinion is better and has a greater impact than the opinions of the other people around them. Another example, is when Mr. Keating explains to Neil that he needs to follow his dream of acting and not the dream that his father has set out for him (Weir). By explaining this to Neil it shows Mr. Keating's beliefs that people should follow the path they want to. Romantics/ Transcendentalists say that a person's beliefs are better than they might think they are but you have to understand that people are inherently good. The fact that people are inherently good and should follow their own beliefs is one Romantic/ Transcendentalist idea that Mr. Keating

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