Theme

The Dead Poets Society was a movie based in Welton Academy it was an all boy prep school. Where everyone being taught there is already pre-planned on what they are going to by their parents and until a new English teacher comes to their school to teach they follow these rules. Mr. Keating who became the English teacher for Welton Academy teaches the children that they need to be individuals and the fundamentals of poetry and that it cannot be rated on a scale like they are supposed to be taught. Following after the first couple lessons he teaches the children become very interested and admire Mr. Keating and show him a book a year book of Mr. Keating's class when he himself had graduated from Welton. From that he get's asked what the Dead Poet Society is and he tells them that when he was in school he and his friends would go to an old indian cave and read poetry to each other. The children become interested and decide to reform the secret society. From that point on the kids make drastic changes in themselves and become individuals. Neil Perry then decides he's going to follow what he loves which is acting and get's the main role in a local play. He lies and forges a letter pretending to be his dad and get's the part. Later his dad finds out that he's in the play and forces him to get out of the play Neil disobeys his father because he's supposed to be out of town in Chicago for 4 days during the play his father comes to the play and see's Neil acting and his furious. He then brings him home and yells at him telling him he's going to be going to a military school, and going to Harvard to become a doctor. Neil feels like this is the end of life, so he decides to take his own life to not be forced to live a life he hates. This dramatic event gets Mr. Keating fired because the school believes that because Mr. Keating preached individuality to the children it made him pursue acting which ultimately resulted in the suicide of Neil Perry. So because of this they put the blame completely on Mr. Keating and he was fired and in the end the children stood on top of their desks while Mr. Keating was leaving his class and shouted “Captain my captain!” the movie then ended. This movie was great it contains a lot of good themes, but the main one I feel is repeated throughout the story is be yourself and do not conform to what others do and tell you to do because that's not who you are