Dead Poets Society: analyse af temaer og Welton Academy

Summary: Dead Poets Society is about a group of schoolboys, who are students in the strict boys-only Welton Academy, which only goal is to educate the best students, so that they may enter the Ivy League. Everything, the teachers, the curriculum, is geared towards the all-important exams, except for one teacher, who isn’t as narrow-minded as the others. He preaches and implements poetry into his English classes. He encourages them to experience life and make the most of everything it has to offer, which is perfectly portrayed in one sentence “Carpe diem”, which translates directly into “seize the day”.Welton Academy:Welton academy is a highly regarded academy which educates and encourages boys to become for example lawyers. This is a boys-only school, where the thought of implementing girls is frowned upon. Everything revolves around being extremely prepared for the exams. The entire curriculum contains everything a student needs to do well in the exams. This results in a very result-based school, where things such as personal progress is merely a small bi-product, and is in no way something Welton will ever consider a main focus point. This is where the conflict of the story in introduced, as one teacher, Mr. Keating, behaves and acts differently from all other teachers as he diverges from the very principle the academy practices. Every student is taught “the 4 pillars” at the beginning of the school year. These pillars are simply put, 4 different “guide lines” on how to succeed, they consist of Tradition, honor, discipline, excellence. All which indicate no trace of social development. Most students are most likely to be very intelligent, but the students themselves will probably not obtain any “power”. This is due to the fact that it’s the boy’s parents that are in control of everything. They’re most likely to have been the ones deciding the academy, as they all come across like they’re unquestionably extremely strict. Welton academy is not strictly fictional, as the school exists in real life, located in Rochester, NY and has 7 core values instead of the 4 we hear about in the book. Mr. Keating is definitely an interesting character in this story, because he is different. He stands out in the crowd. Amongst narrow-minded colleagues he maintains a way of life, and a way of thinking, that gives something else to the boys. He gives them life. He methods to enter their minds are nothing like the other teacher’s approach to learning. He isn’t as fixated on cramming as the rest. He comes up with ingenious ways to teach the students. From a technical point of view when he leads the boys into the yard and makes them march around, he introduces a physical aspect into learning, and movement increases the brains ability to learn and combine people with actions, thereby amplifying their strong attachment to Mr. Keating. Mr. Keating himself went to the school previously in his life, as a student though. Mr. Keating is the one to introduce the Dead Poets Society