Dead Poets Society Conformity Post

It is and always has been human nature to seek acceptance from one’s peers and to fear loneliness. The desire to fit in usually overwhelms people’s desire to always be independent and be themselves. This is especially true among teenagers. In a school environment, a student’s worst fear is to be taken as strange or weird, and be shunned by his fellow students. In order to feel socially acceptable, students constantly feel the need to conform and try to behave, think, and look similar to those around them. Dead Poets Society is about a group of students living in this environment at a very esteemed boarding school called Welton Academy. With the teachers and professors of Welton Academy encouraging this behavior, as well as most of the student’s parents, the majority of the students at Welton found little opportunity to stay true to themselves and follow what they believed in. Everyone around them, their parents, their teachers, and unknowingly their friends, constantly influenced them to conform. The method of education that Welton utilized went completely against that idea that every child has a right to express them self however they want, and should choose their own future.

            At the beginning of Dead Poets Society, a new professor is being introduced to the students and staff, Mr. Keating. Mr. Keating is the new poetry teacher for the group of students who make up the movie’s main characters. Mr. Keating uses an extremely unorthodox method of teaching, one that most if not all of his fellow teachers and professors disapprove of. Because of his strange teaching strategy and refusal to conform to the ways of his peers, Mr. Keating quickly earned the dislike of the dean of the school. Indeed, he was blamed for some horrible events that transpired towards the end of the story. Mr. Keating’s lessons about how everyone should choose their own future and not let anyone tell them who they should be gave many of his students the courage to speak out against the school and their parents. Some of them were inspired to be themselves and follow their passions despite severe consequences that occurred later on in the story. Every student who stuck out and attempted to be a non-conformist for a while quickly faced severe punishment from either the school or their parents. One student went against the wishes of his extremely controlling father and followed his passion for acting without his father’s consent. His father became infuriated, so furious that he pulled his son out of Welton and enrolled him in military school. The student soon committed suicide rather than live with a father who wouldn’t let his son do what actually made him happy. Because of the overpowering tradition of conformity and discipline that was enforced at Welton, the school was essentially a place where all the professors, who were practically clones, could mold the students into exactly who their parents wanted them to be. When Mr. Keating arrived and attempted to change some of the student’s way of thinking, the academy quickly rejected his ideas and promised punishment or expulsion for any who would not continue to conform.