The
film Dead Poets Society is full of hidden messages, and each main character contributes
to these messages that the movie tries to express to its viewers. For my blog
on a character’s internal and external journey throughout the film I chose Neil
Perry. Neil was Todd Anderson’s roommate at Welton Academy. He came from a
normal family and was the only member to have the opportunities he had, attending
such a prestigious school, according to his father.
Neil’s
father controlled what he could and could not do. When the film started, his
father went to the school to tell him to drop from a club he participated. He
felt that he could not be himself because of his father’s demands but this time
he obeyed his father. Constantly fearing to disappoint and not having the
courage to stand up to his father is one of his internal journeys. Another
internal journey of Neil can be when the boys discover the Dead Poets Society
book from Mr. Keating’s days backed up with the professor’s inspiration. He saw
Mr. Keating’s mentality of free thinking as a very powerful tool so he decided
to take it for himself and audition for a part in the school play. When he got
the part, he concluded that he wanted to be an actor, disobeying his father’s
imposition to only focus on classes. This internal journey of own thoughts
rather than his father’s reflects how Neil found what he most wanted and went
to pursue it despite what happened in the end. The most striking internal
journey of Neil has to be his decision at the end to kill himself. He surely
thought he could not deal with his father’s obligations, wanting to do other
things that his dad did not agree.
His
external journey in the movie could have been when he did participate in the
school play although his father told him not to. By his internal journey of
discovering himself, he pursued his ambition and took the role of the main
protagonist in the play not caring on what the people on his surroundings would
think, including his father. This external journey of participating in the play
was one of the biggest challenges of his life because he was disobeying his
father by his action. These means that for the first time he acted as himself,
not pretending to be what his father wanted him to be.
How differently it would have turned out if his father would have accepted his decision. Did you notice that the father had symptoms of OCD? I think this was indicating a problem of mental illness and increased the plausibility of Neil's suicide. Maybe Neil didn't work out his internal journey because he reacted by choosing escape. What do you think, Antonio?
ReplyDeleteI really did not think about it that way, good analysis. It is very true that people passing through troubled times have so many options in life, but from all the pressure they choose the easy way of ending it, and that is to escape, in this case meaning suicide. After your comment, I do think his father had some kind of sickness and would not stop, and by Neil knowing this, he chose to escape from it completely.
DeleteI also talked about Neil Perry in my blog. I think most of us chose him because of his drastic decision at the end of the movie. Maybe he wouldn't have done that if his father had accepted his desire to study acting.
ReplyDeleteAccepting that differences make us special is something Neil's dad didn't know. Maybe if he had talked to his son, Neil would have resolved his internal journey rather than escaping it.
ReplyDelete