The Dead Poets Society Summary

Dead Poets Society is a movie that compares the conflict between realism and romanticism. The setting takes place at an all-boys preparatory school named, Welton Academy. The academy is a traditional academy where many lawyers and doctors have graduated from. The schools’ light of knowledge stands in the principles of {Tradition, Honor, Discipline, and Excellence}, until a new English teacher named Mr. John Keating arrives with a passion for teaching romanticism, and showing his students a word they’ve never seen before. The first day of class, he goes into the classroom whistling, his students were pretty surprised, since everything is so serious in Welton Academy. The story is predominately viewed through the eyes of Todd Anderson. Todd is a newcomer to Welton, and his roommate’s name is Neil Perry. Todd is very shy and terrified of anything he says for he is afraid that It is insignificant and meaningless. Todd usually gets told that he has “big shoes to fill”, since his brother was a valedictorian at that academy. Neil, in the other side, is very bright, optimistic and full of ambition, but with an over controlling father.

His father, Mr.Perry, dictates every detail of his son’s life. He didn’t even let him have any extracurricular activities. Mr. Keating has a very fervent lecture during his first day of class. He spoke to his students over their lives, and how important is it to leave a legacy. He tells them to rip out the introductory pages of their books. Which Charlie does it first than anyone else. He doesn’t believe in the scientific definition that the introduction gives about what poetry is. He talks to them about romantic poets, and has outdoor exercises to warn them about the dangers of conformity. He gets on top of the desk to show his students the different view from being under and standing on top. His students try it as well. Then the students find a yearbook of Mr.Keating where they see that he was part of the Dead Poets Society. When asked about it, he describes glorious moments but warns them to forget about the idea. But they begin to sneak out at night to a cave, Charlie’s and Neal’s idea and they start their own version of the Dead Poets Society meetings. Charlie takes a picture of a nude woman, they read poems from the Dead Poets Society book, they smoke, play music instruments and drink at a time.

Throughout this meetings, Todd never reads, he was an exception to the rule, he simply keeps the timing. During one of his class lessons while playing soccer and other sports outside, Mr.Keating explains his students that a sport is a way in which a human being is pushed to excel. During class, he asks the students to recite a poem. Something that drives Todd crazy, he is super nervous and terrified about this whole thing. When that day arrives, Mr.Keating actually pushes Todd to do a magnificent job, and it all starts when he is asked by Mr. Keating to yell out the word YAWP which stands for a loud cry or yell. He recites a great poem out of nowhere when Mr.Keating covers his eyes. At the end, Mr.Keating tells Todd that he is worth something, to never forget that. Then Todd gets the same birthday present that he had for last year. He feels like his parents really don’t pay attention to him and feels unloved. Then Neil sits him sitting all by himself and goes to encourage him, they even throw the birthday gift away.

During one of the last meetings, while Knox Overstreet is chasing behind the girls he has madly fallen in love with, Charlie brings to woman to the cave. All the other boys were pretty mad at him for doing this, but they were even madder when Charlie told them that he had published an article about the Dead Poets Society in the school society. Then when Mr. Nolan found out about his, he held a meeting with all the student body of the academy and of course asked who had done such thing. In a very disrespectful way, Charlie pretends the phone had ringed and tells Mr. Nolan that he had a call from God. After that Charlie went straight to the office to get paddle, and to give the names of the other members, which he never did. Then Neal realizes that his real passion is acting and for the first time doesn’t care if his dad approves or not, so he auditions for the role of the Puck in a Midsummer Night’s Dream at the local theater. Then his father after finding out, demands him to quit the play. With this said, Neil ends up lying to Mr.Keating about his dad letting him continue on the play. All his buddies go see him act and cheer for him, even Knox Overstreet took the girl he was in love with.

Then feeling trapped over all his dad’s demands and his future, Neil takes his own life. After this, Todd goes in a dramatic shock and yells out for Neil, he blames Mr.Perry for this. After Mr.Perry asked for investigations on Mr.Keating and the Dead Poets Society, Mr. Nolan linked all the connections and blame everything on Mr. Keating. Charlie gets expelled. Then Richard Cameron goes and confesses everything to the office, he then gets punched on the face by Dalton and he ends up getting expelled as well. All the members get called into Mr.Nolan’s office to sign a document that states that Mr.Keating filled their minds with theses lofty ideals ultimately leading Neil’s suicide. Of course Cameron is the first one to sign the statement and goes to encourage the rest of the group only to get punched on the face by Dalton. The last one to sign that statement was Todd. He didn’t want to, he knew that Mr.Keating wasn’t responsible for any of this.

On the final Scene, while Mr. Nolan pretended to be teaching a “traditional” poetry class, Mr. Keating goes in and asks if he can go in and pick up his belongings. Before he left, Todd, the shy and nervous student who had no identity, Stood up in his desk and cried out “Oh captain, my captain!!”, he did this for the teacher who had changed his life. Then the rest of the a few other students did the same thing, and Mr. Keating’s eyes filled up with tears, he was proud of his students but mainly of Todd, he always believed in him, and before leaving he thanked them. Mr. Nolan would yell at them to sit down, but they knew Mr. Keating deserved it, and they disobeyed Mr.Nolan.