Rebellion In The Dead Poets Society

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Naively, humans adopt a sense of purpose and superiority; they assume invincibility and follow ambiguous passions to the point of ruin. However, in our Capitalistic society, in order to sustain a life of security and obtain a job to fund it, one must excel in realistic fields. Unfortunately, the quintessential life does not exist; life is not fun and accepting this is crucial to keeping one’s own ambition to succeed a reality. Exploiting this conflicting idea, the movie, The Dead Poet’s Society, outlines how hypocrisy, rebellion and a radical new teacher ruin an academy. Built upon tradition, honor discipline and excellence, Welton Academy is designed to aid students in climbing the ladder to success and building prosperous lives. The values …show more content…

Keating promote his own conflicting doctrine, but also promotes rebellion. In a sense, his return to the school is an anti-establishment stunt to challenge the schooling system. He encourages the boys to contest what is brought to them and act in a reckless manner, explicitly shows them the meaning of the dead poet society (himself providing the “5 centuries of verse” to the club) and encourages Neil to rebel against his father. Keating promotes pushing barriers, which in and of itself is not entirely a negative concept, but with no repercussions or limitations on behaviour, can bring about lots of misfortune. Suicide, expulsion and anti-establishment gags, all inspired by the teachings of Keating, lead the students down a path of self-destruction. One could contest that through Keating, the boys have reached a sense of purpose and happiness. Although this rebellion might lead to pleasure and delight, it is quite the grandiose misinterpretation of reality. A school’s purpose is to prepare students for “the real world” and life isn’t inherently enjoyable. Purpose is arguably nonexistent, and responsibility in maintaining a steady life is primary to following a vague passion that could leave one to wither. The kids that go to Welton enrolled to become successful, if some 80% of the students that enroll do achieve this, this elucidates a functional system, attempting to modify this system would go against its

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