Agenda of Dead Poets Society, what is the need of literature in our lives, the importance of poetry in our lives

It is December. The end of the year. And if we talk about this year, 2021, it flashes by in an instance. With the post-pandemic awareness, we started this year and reached the end. Knowing there will be a new strain coming in the following year, we find no joy in Christmas.

But it is not our concern, and we cannot hold back facing such a deadly disease. We will recover again and again. And eventually will move forward with our pursuits in life. So, without further adieu, let's discuss this month's topic.

For this last month, I decided to choose something that foretells about life and the viability of literature in it. And as we know, there was no second choice in terms of this theme remained selective in our decision-making. In simple words, to be precise, our views fall upon Peter Weir's masterpiece. Dead Poet's Society, the modern world fragmented into segments of seekable dreams, speaks clearly of salvation. The salvation that helps people not only to survive but to live their lives to the fullest.

Some movies are good, and the other ones are better, but Dead Poet's Society is the only one that moves me the most. It particularly influenced me to write down the unsaid, literal things. Because in this movie, teenager life is tragic, and dreams are painfully realistic.

What it is about:

Dead Poet's Society is a story about a group of teenagers in one of the best high schools in the United States. They are bound to prosper, and it is almost like the path to their future successes has already been mapped out meticulously the moment they were born. There are future bankers, lawyers, doctors among them. And in order not to disappoint their parents all their lives, they have been working towards that one goal until somebody appears in their lives, their English teacher John Keating. With his unconventional teaching methods, Keating introduced the students to the paradise of the Romantic poets. He tells them to see 13h days 'Carpe Diem' (The phrase is 'Carpe Diem' taken from Roman poet Horace's Odes, written over 2,000 years ago means Seize the Day). He hoped that his students could have faith in themselves. They are not to blindly conform but dare to take the path less traveled, dare to be extraordinary. In Walt Whitman's words,

"That life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse."

It is undoubtedly beautiful and romantic to phrase these life lessons through the words of the poets. But, if this movie started progressing here and showed us how the students are so inspired to chase their dreams and how their lives turn out to be exceptional, it would be no different than those cliché inspirational quotes/life stories we see random people sharing on Facebook. The entertaining part of this movie comes from the second half, where it radically changes its tone and becomes an examination of happiness, dreams, and death. It elapsed when Neil got a part in the drama production. Neil loved acting even dreamed of becoming an actor, but his father wanted him to become a doctor. He knew that his dad would not let him play, so he held that out on his death and faked a ladder of an agreement to the production on the night of the performance.

Neil received an ovation due to his remarkable talent, but his father remained unimpressed. He chastised Neil and told him that he would be withdrawn from the school and transferred to a military academy to prepare for university. Neil was distressed, knowing that his father was never going to let him pursue a career in acting. He decided to commit suicide the same night. The school conducted a full investigation, blaming Keating and his conventional teaching. They required the students to sign a document to attest their testimony of judgment. To that, there were mixed reactions in the realm of students. Some were uncooperative to sign it despite the chance of being expelled. But most of them compromised under the threat of expulsion. With sufficient evidence on hand, John Keating was fired. Still, he received the last salutation from his students as a parting gift, proving his innocence and excellence in his teachings.

Theme:

The prime theme of Dead Poets Society is actually how it constantly challenges our traditional definition of happiness. From a romanticism standpoint, first, it is the value of success. In a traditional sense, one of the things that are special about the story arc is how it attaches success from dream chasing. It did not tell you with banality how if you do not give up on your dreams, they will come true someday.

It showed you -

• If somebody aspires to become an actor, not only that dream be incredibly far-fetched, but they will also be left distraught and dead.
• If someone defends their favorite teacher who made their lives exciting, they will get expulsion.
• If someone does not conform to the usual teaching paradigm and insists on upholding their ideals, they get fired in less than a year.

Reality is always that cruel to dreamers, but it is precisely how the movie detached success. The value of dreams and perseverance shine more brightly than ever when many stories coupled up the persistence in green chasing and the eventual success we think to ourselves if we are getting the best of both worlds.

What is the struggle in the face of the cruelty of reality?

-At the point where we must choose between the two inevitably. We ask ourselves, what is worth pursuing? - is that the romance of the dreams, or is it the eventual success where dreams and persistence mean to an end like a philosopher. And the movie presents the audience with a thought experiment to find out which one of two values do we value more. We do not imagine a world where we can obtain both of them. Or be it possible we imagine the case where they conflict. If we want to find out whether we value our existence in reality or happiness more, we do not imagine us existing, both in everyday reality and being happy. Although, that is more than possible. We ask ourselves to choose between being plugged into a simulated reality where we can be as happy as we want versus existing in the real world even though it may be full of pain.

Reality and Theories:

The constructed thought experiment is the famous experience machine-argument by philosopher Robert Nozick(What is Nozick theory? - Nozick, in general, contends that people are born with fundamental individual rights. These individual rights are paramount, and that there is no need for a system to achieve moral equilibrium. He rejects all end-result theories, i.e., distributive theories such as Rawls's theory of justice.). In the same vein, the movie realistically tells us that often believing in your dreams and accomplishing them does not have an inevitable causal relationship. In this case, do we value the brief sparkle of romance more than a successful life and the security that comes with it?

The story goes on to challenge our attitude to life and death. The theme of Jeffrey is a subtle yet recurring one in the movie. And you can even say that it is the actual motif of the story. From Keating's first lesson, where he led the students to find the pictures of school alumni, he dictates his teachings. "Flowers smiling today will be dying tomorrow" - too many poems and verses like this involve the relationship between life and death.

One of the most memorable lessons that Keating taught his students was when he said, "Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are all noble pursuits, and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for". Keating went on to quote Whitman's poem about living in a grim and hopeless society portrayed where everything appears to be so aimless we can not help but ask ourselves - What good amid these? What motivates us to keep going?

And for Whitman, the answer is that we are still living. Life exists, and we have our emotions and feelings to express ourselves. The commencement of the meeting in the Dead Poets Society features a paragraph from Thoreau's Walden. Here life and death again serve as the road. The protagonist lived in the woods because he wanted to experience the essence of life. He went to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. So that when his death comes, he would not have to find that his life serves no meaning. After Neil's suicide, Keating revisited this paragraph emotionally overwhelmed, heartbroken, and cried from the traditional point of view of how society has implicitly imposed on us. Death is the worst thing that can happen to a person. That is also why we categorized this movie as a tragedy in the first place.

But would not we have to be guilty of having the exact mindset that merely set out to challenge through these verses?

-See for, the writer, it is one thing. It may very well be the worst. And dying that is to lose your identity, to have never written down a verse of your own, and to find out that you have not lived but when you die. For Neil, he understood clearly, that after this attempt of rebellion, he had to follow the path his family had laid down for him, at least for the next ten years. Or what he would be doing was to study medicine even though that was no Broadway. Taking part in that production may be the only point in his life where his individuality truly takes the main stage and shines if life is mundane and ordinary. After this digression, even if he would have everything to sustain life, he could not live it to the fullest. But when what he was staying alive for is lost, for Neil, suicide was the remedy because he had contributed his own short, the original verse he had left. In this regard, new suicide was romantic. It was emancipating and happy. Even if the narrative is not pushed further to this point, only questions are being raised using romanticism to challenge a world overshadowed by realism. Unlike many other films, this movie did not conspicuously advocate for the romantics because we all know that it is foolish to cite definitively that one of two values is more noble and worth pursuing.

Every line like this, 'Only in their dreams can men be truly free it was always thus and always thus will be.' there will always be a response like this -

"Show me the heart unfettered by foolish dreams, and I'll show you a happy man." and vice versa.

Ending:

At the end of the movie, it passes the struggle and decision back to us. We can choose to be like Charlie to defend the teacher who has enlightened us with the lyrics of the romantics and be adamant even in the threat of expulsion. Or we can be like Todd and the others, to compromise in the face of reality. Either way, Keating would not say that you are wrong. Because at the end of the day, Keating himself is not exactly the resolute advocate for romanticism either. As he said, we are left with the choices to trade-off and the compromises to make, to struggle through life. And I think he would hope merely of an instance that we do not forget the teacher like him ever existed. For him, only that truly matters.

In this world of complex figurings, simple numbers are left overlooked. The powerful emotions, the sustaining ability to live life, and expressing oneself above the odds are the traits that prove humans are simple creatures who wear themselves out, being interwoven in the wave of societal hegemony. By simply fighting with one's inner self, we grew up. Sometimes, we lose ourselves in the broad matter of establishing ourselves in our society. Crooking and mending us into something not us-like, we try to force the outcome into our privileges. Ultimately, it results in nothing like what we expected. It proves our ventures wrong and drives us further from life. And we choose the easy way out without being able to cope with the system. This film only shows us that. You can not live constantly fighting with yourself and what you truly want to become. And I think here lies the true significance of this movie.

So here ends another review of mine. Analyzing and demodulating these films always remains an excellent experience for me. Though it takes time, it never ceases to amaze me how these films work for the betterment. They sorely leave us awestruck and entertain us with their deep-rooted messages. Thank you for reading this. We will meet soon, in the next month. Merry Christmas, beforehand.