“Powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”
Though a movie with a really tragic end, Dead Poets Society is still a comfort movie for millions of people including me. The movie with its main theme of ‘Carpe Diem’ or ‘Seize the Day’ shows how important it is for one to strive to find their own voice as it says “The longer you wait to begin, the less likely you’re to find it at all.” In a world where all of us are just longing for acceptance, we should also remember to never lose our individuality for a sense of belonging. To succumb to the rules of the world, the rules that make you feel suffocated, does no one any good. Free thinking and open-minded ideas are what change the world. The movie shows John Keating, a romantic, a free thinker and a survivor of Welton Academy as a mentor to the students. He teaches them to live everyday to the fullest for a day shall come when all of us perish. He greatly influences the life of his students including Todd Anderson and Neil Perry. Todd, coming from a family which puts a great deal of pressure on him, exhibits social anxiety and low self-esteem as he believes that no word said by him is worth anything. But Keating helps Todd recognize the poet inside him as he allows the imagination and hence the words to flow freely. (PS: Find someone who looks at you the way Neil looked at Todd during this scene.) The portrayal of anxiety in this movie is quite well done. As someone who can relate to Todd’s character, this scene holds great value. From not being able to speak aloud in class to standing up for his teacher in the end, you can see the difference in the confidence Todd has at the beginning and the end of the movie. Through poetry he recognised his voice and started writing his own verse.
Just like most of us, Neil Perry also had a complicated relationship with his parents. His father was a controlling and uptight man who thought he knew what was best for his son. A lot of teenagers have to struggle with this as parents expect their children to fulfil their own dreams instead of seeing their children’s passions. This always results in the children feeling alone and having a lack of trust and bitterness towards their parents. Keating’s ideologies motivated Neil to finally pursue his passion for acting and act in the play ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ Instead of recognising his talent, Neil’s father decides to take away his already negligible freedom despite seeing his performance in the play. This was the moment Neil realised that no matter what he says his father would never understand a word because instead of being a dad, his father was a heartless man with a self-righteous complex.
“And now when I come to die, I discover that I had not lived.” – Thoreau; said at the beginning of every Dead Poets meeting.
For the first time in life, Neil felt like he had lived a little and that’s how he wanted to end it. The Dead Poets meetings helped the boys find their identities. Keating helped the boys find their strength and their passions. But at the end, Keating was fired and the meetings were banned by the school because we live in a society and the society sets restrictions on anything that falls a bit outside its comfort zone. In present times, this can most evidently be seen in the restrictions imposed on queer people just for living their lives in peace. Thus, in order to truly live we must have our own thoughts and we must think openly.
#Contest: YKAatNITTrichy
Name: Hiya Jandial
College: NIT Trichy
Roll Number: 106123050