Part of growing up is leaving your parents and determining what is best for yourself instead of listening to what others think is best for you. In both Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse and the movie Dead Poets Society we were introduced to characters who were beginning to make these steps in life; Siddhartha himself, and Neil Perry. While each character had many differences, they both faced the same problem, their fathers had set out a plan for their lives that they would follow no matter what was for their best interest. These plans not only were nothing similar to what the boys wanted in life, but led to each of them turning against their parents wishes. The decision to disobey their family’s wishes led both Neil Perry and Siddhartha to find what truly made them happy in life. …show more content…
It is unclear if the boys choose to follow this plan because they are unsure if this is the path they will end up taking, or if they do it out of love for their families, but either could be the case. This plan made by the father of Siddhartha is evident when it is said that “there was happiness in [Siddhartha’s] father’s heart because of his son who was intelligent and thirsty for knowledge; he saw him growing up to be a great learned man, a priest, a prince among Brahmins” (Hesse 2). In this section, Siddhartha’s father looks into Siddhartha’s future and sees him becoming a respectable, powerful man as a priest or prince. What he doesn’t think about at all during this fantasy is the interests of his son, which ultimately leads to this plan falling apart. This is similar to how in Dead Poets Society, Mr. Perry had created a plan and determined what Neil could and could not do in order to follow this perfect path and reach the ultimate goal of getting his son to Harvard. As a result, Neil disagreed with his father and turned against the plan to do what he thought was best for