Seize the day! Make your lives extraordinary.” This idea of carpe dium is central to the message of the movie and a key part of romanticism. One of the first things Mr. Keating tells the students is to call him “Oh Captain, my Captain,” which comes as a shock to the students who are told by strict orders by all other teachers to refer to them formally. He teaches the boys to think for themselves, a lesson looked down upon at the elite academy directed towards developing their minds through learning out of textbooks. Mr. Keating then has the boys stand on their desks to teach them how they can see the world in a different way.
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” (pg. 30) is one of the lessons learned. No one in Maycomb puts themselves in Boo’s shoes, so they don’t understand his suffering. People don’t see his true intelligence that was ruined by his cruel father; this makes Boo one of our most important mockingbirds. I see behavior like this everyday, as I walk down the high school halls, into the lunchroom, even just kids hanging out in town – there is always some one judging someone.
He makes his students stand up to talk, so that their circulation and attention increases. Mr. Wenger uses the tactic of discipline to make sure that his students stay in line, and so that he had power. He kicked Kevin out of his class just like Hitler got rid of the dissidents of his power and regime. He makes the kids do exercises and supports fitness, just like Hitler supported the cult of the body. Wenger uses the power of unity in his classroom by doing group exercises and marching in time which is awfully reminiscent of the demonstrations Hitler did with his youth.
His unorthodox methods not only taught the boys to think for themselves, but they also awoke the boys’ inner desires and dreams. This movie does an excellent job of portraying the school’s four pillars (tradition, honor, discipline, and excellence) and the four I’s (individualism, innocence, intuition, and imagination) through members of the Dead Poets Society, specifically Todd Anderson and Charlie “Nuwanda” Dalton. Todd Anderson showed the best understanding of the philosophies of transcendentalism, notably Ralph Waldo Emerson’s. Todd failed to follow Emerson’s philosophy of “Imitation is suicide” until the very last minute of the movie, when he daringly stood up on his desk and called out “Oh Captain, my Captain!” to Mr. Keating. He could not hold in his guilt anymore because he felt bad for conforming, or imitating, what the other members of the Dead Poets Society had done in Mr. Nolan’s office.
One of my mentees told me that he would skip school because the other students would pick on him. I’m glad that he can learn without fear out being bullied. Uniforms have brought forth an opportunity for all students to work together without being judged by other students about what clothes are being worn. The only thing that matters is knowledge. Instead of students focusing on what the next student has on, they are paying more attention to their studies.
In Albert Camus’s The Outsider, freedom is portrayed as the conformity with the guidelines and expectations created by society, and following this rules in search of acceptance. Meursault is the “outsider” in the novel, because he refuses to be what society expects of him. Instead he chooses to be different and live by his own set of rules and expectations. Mr Keating from the movie “Dead Poets Society” is a high school teacher for the private school Welton, who gives his students a new perspective in life as they begin to follow their own dreams and ideas, which completely contradicts the expectations of their parents and school representatives. In both the novel The Outsider and the movie “Dead poets Society” it is evident that liberty does not exist, since a person is only free while obeying society’s guidelines.
The slow motion technique is used throughout the sequence to indicate meaningful and serious characters. The shot then swings to follow Donnie as he enters the school. He is separate from his friends and leads them down the hall, creating a sense of individuality. It separates him from the pack and highlights him as a superior person who is not caught up in insignificant aspects of school life. The camera then pans resulting in a point of view shot as Donnie approaches the school bully.
Good morning teachers and students. I will explore how the perceptions of belonging and not belonging can be influenced by external forces through the two Peter Skrzynecki poems ‘Felik’s Skrzynecki’ and ‘St Patrick’s College’ and my related text ‘New Boy’, a short film by Steph Green. These texts explore the aspects that individuals are externally excluded when they are undesired outsiders and assimilating to a foreign environment arouses the difficulties in affiliation. Peter Skrzynecki’s poem “Feliks Skrzynecki” explores the aspect that individuals are externally excluded when they are undesired outsiders. The mocking tone of the clerk’s rhetorical question exposes this idea, “Did your father ever attempt to learn English?” exposes this idea.
Abby’s Lament starts off the beginning paragraph talking about Abby and how she doesn’t believe that her voice can be heard and that her opinion doesn’t matter. Yagelski believes she is wrong, everyone’s opinion matters in society. He believes that it can be heard through education and comprehension of literature. After the opening paragraph the essay goes into how Yagelski was at a high school talking to teachers and students about how during this era of technology and the internet that it is easier for people to make their voice be heard and to make a difference. When he makes the point that everyone can make their voice heard, Abby, one of the students said that hers does not matter in society and it can’t make an impact.
I wish that there was more detail surrounding Dibs’ behavioral issues. That being said, all in all I really enjoyed it, some parts more than others. My favorite part was actually the letter that Dib himself wrote as a letter of protest against the recent dismissal of one of his classmates. Dibs’, even having gone through so much turmoil in his past, has grown up to be a charismatic, compassionate, sensitive, leader. In his letter, Dibs’ expresses his protest to the head of the school by arguing that his classmate was not trying to cheat by copying off of him, but that he was trying to look at Dibs’ paper to make sure that he had the correct date down and as Dib’s argues, “He said he was verifying a date – an important date in history – and since accuracy is of date is essential to establish its very existence, then it should indeed, be verified” (Axline, 1964, p. 217).