Examples Of Transcendentalism In The Dead Poets Society

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Individuality is a strong topic when it comes to movies and poems. The Dead Poets Society is about an Alumni of the Welton Academy coming back to teach English, his lessons in teaching is very different from the typical lessons in Welton. He teaches his students “Carpe Diem” meaning to seize the day and he also teaches them to be themselves to find themselves. He’s against conformity and wants his students to be their own in the world. Transcendentalism is about rising above, the ultimate goal is to rise above the material world by getting closer to nature and getting more into individuality. The Dead Poets Society connects to Transcendentalism.
The connection between the Dead Poets Society and Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” excerpt is that in The Dead Poets Society, Mr. Keating would constantly tell his students be themselves and that one should not conform. In the movie Mr. Keating had this “Paper Ripping” lesson where he wanted his student to rip the whole introduction of their book because it would teach the boy how to depend on another man's thoughts. In Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” he stated that “To believe your own thought, to believe that …show more content…
Keating taught his students and always reminded them about “Carpe Diem” which means seize the day, and with the “Walden” Excerpt Thoreau wrote that “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life” meaning that Walden went to live out from society to appreciate life much more and to discover thing in life that are not discoverable when stuck in the material world and society. It connects to the Dead Poets Society when Mr. Keating would bring his lessons outdoor and to connect more with nature when reciting poetry and with Mr. Keating’s “Desk” lesson teaching and reminding his student to look at thing in life in different ways and to not only look at them one
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