Dead Poet Society

1377 Words6 Pages
SEIZE THE DAY Carpe Diem, the Latin word for ‘’seize the day’’, is a broadly presented theme in the film Dead Poets Society, as well as parenting, conformity, making choices, youth, generation gaps and many more. In this essay I am going to go more into these different themes and explain how these are related to the film. In the film Dead Poets Society you see the different impressions of discipline, tradition and honor, through the students at a school called Welton Boys Academy. The film represents the different educational sights of Welton Academy and the new English teacher, Mr. Keating. Welton encourage the students to achieve their best abilities in order to be accepted by society. However, John Keating inspires the students to find their own paths and to think for themselves. He wanted them to stand against the conformity and not care about the expectations of society, but rather follow their hearts. In spite of this you see that some of the themes can also be tradition, honor and conformity in the film. Welton defines tradition as honoring the previous generation by maintain they values and become something so you can get accepted in the society. Their school believed that this tradition will teach them respect and increase the student’s status in the society. An example of that was when the principal said to Mr. Keating ‘’ the curriculum here is set; it has been proven it works. If you question it, then what’s to stop them doing the same?’’. What he mean about this is that the school system that they have, always worked and if they started questioning if they should change it or if something is wrong, then it is a good chance the students will do the same. The reason this was a bad thing, according to the principal, was because of the tradition and the discipline. They could not question the teacher or the school system, they just did as they were told.

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