Examples Of Transcendentalism In Dead Poets Society

Alexandra Coleman

Ms. Smith

Major American Authors, 1st hour

16 April 2015

Transcendentalism in Dead Poets Society Transcendentalism is extremely prominent in the 1989 film, Dead Poets Society. The idea of Transcendentalism can be defined as any given philosophy that says spiritual things and thoughts are more realistic than human ideas or experiences; this philosophy emphasizes how spiritual experiences and ideas are more valuable than the empirical. Transcendentalism stresses the beliefs that the truth is in all of creation, while the knowledge of the truth is distorted. It also gives an over soul, which forms the idea that the divinity of ones spirit or mind is in nature as well as ones self. The philosophical idea of Transcendentalism

In the Dead Poets Society, self-reliance represents the idea of Transcendentalism. Ten self-reliant transcendental examples in the Dead Poets Society are as follows. (1) Robin Williams' character shows a teacher who believed in intuitive way of life because instead of teaching a book to his students that provides instructions to understand poetry, he takes the transcendentalist way out and rips out the instruction pages and teaches his students to interpret the poems for theirselves. In tearing up the instructions sheet of the poem book, it shows a transcendentalist action by the assertion of individuality. (2) Student Charlie Daulton shows a self-reliant transcendentalist character because during the film he broke free of his schools and parents expectations, so he could learn how to make his own decisions. He ultimately paid a price for his actions, but the new him better shaped his character in teaching him how to mature. (3) The character Todd Anderson lacks self confidence and is unable to express himself throughly. In class his teacher (Robin Williams) calls him to the front of room to recite a poem, which he is nervous about. At that

(4) Mr. Keating (Robin Williams) tells his students to call him "O Captain, My Captain'" which was written by Walt Whitman who was a transcendentalist. The action of telling his students to call him "O Captain, My Captain" is a self reliant move that clearly expressed in poems made by Walt Whitman. (5) Throughout the movie, there are plenty of cases where the characters expressed acts of transcendentalism. The characters disobey the rules in order to reach their goals. Due to the expressing of transcendentalism, there were positive outcomes, but there were also some negative outcomes. For example, Neil Perry decides that he would rather become an actor opposed to working in the medical field. After discovering that his son does not want to join the medical field, Mr. Perry decided to dictate his sons life. Neil decides that he still wasn't going to listen to his father, so he figured that the only way to disobey his father was to commit suicide. (7) Knox Overstreet is infatuated with a girl named Chris. After meeting Chris, Knox realizes that being intuitive is important if you want to learn how to make your own decisions. Recognizing