TOW #26: Dead Poet's Society as a Visual Text

This weekend, I had the pleasure of watching the classic film Dead Poet's Society for the first time. Given the topic of the story, and the fact that much of what happens throughout the film centers around classical texts and the impact that they have on modern characters, I think it serves as the perfect visual text to analyze in an APELC setting.

In considering what the director of Dead Poet's Society, Peter Weir, wishes for the audience to take from the film, it is essential to examine the social climate of the film as a whole, and understand how this affects the film's main characters. The story's setting at the Welton school can only be described as a place where conservative values of private education and institutionalism clash with the progressive ideals of youth, and those of John Keating, played by Robin Williams. As the film's tagline cites, Keating acts as the inspiration for the young men of his English class, who have been subjected to the rigged cultural ideals of the Welton School their entire lives. This is best evidenced when Keating reads aloud the absurd introduction to the classes English textbook, which instructs students to use an X-Y Axis to rate a poem's perfection, then allows the students to tear the book apart. In this way, Keating exposes the students to their first real taste of freedom and self expression in an educational environment. This is the first of several instances of Keating exposing the students to educational freedom over the course of the film. In the way, he challenges his students to question the social and political norms that define life at Welton. This leads Charlie to publish an article arguing for a coeducational environment at the school, and leads Neil Perry to take up an interest in acting, despite his father's stiff punishments.

Overall, this encouragement of doing what others might frown upon for the sake of "finding oneself" is the film's main message. Keating acts as the embodiment of the ideals he discusses in classic works such as Ulysees and The Odyssey. The relationship he shares with his students, and the outcome of these relationships at the end of the film, serves as an overall metaphor for the importance of questioning authority in all of its forms, and shaping ones identity not for the sake of others, but for the sake of oneself. It is important to note that Keating does not act a savior for his students, but rather that he acts as a tool for them to find the savior in themselves. It is through his lessons that his students go on to shape their own lives, and defy the rigid authoritarianism that surrounds them in the conservative environment of Welton, as well as the pressures they face from their at-home environments. Professor Keating enables his students to realize that they are more than mere products of the educational system, but individuals, capable of unique and wonderful things. He also attempts to instill in them a desire and a consciousness towards their ability to change the status quo of their environment. The films final scene, in which all of the members of the Dead Poet's Society stand on their desk's in a silent salute to Mr. Keating,  reveals his success at this endeavor.