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Dead Poets Society

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Dead Poets Society
Tia Poindexter
December 25th, 2012
English 12

In the film, Dead Poets Society, Welton Academy is founded on tradition and excellence and is set on providing strict structured lessons by realist, close-minded, and anti-youth administration. When Mr. John Keating, a former student returns to Welton Academy and teaches English, he inspires a class of teenage boys to pursue their desires and live life to the fullest through his Poetry unit which included a former secret society that Mr. Keating used to be a party of and run called The Dead Poets Society. In the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden, a privileged yet troubled teen goes on a quest to defend his possession of his life and escape the “phonies and conformity” of his life. He is set up to win the game, where he is male, wealthy, and white but he struggles with the feeling of no ownership to the path his life takes. Holden eludes what was expected of him at his prestigious prep school and the death of his younger brother Allie causes Holden to downfall because of the loss of innocence. He tries to regain that innocence, because his has been taken away after the death of his brother. In Dead Poet's Society, Mr. Keating urges the boys to escape yet explore their lives of conformity through writing and poetry, which is also similar to Holden as he wrote down many of his encounters through his journey and is trying to escape the conformity in, is life. Welton Academy is a prestigious prep school and the boys are also set up to win, but like in both stories, there is no ownership to their own paths of life, which both the boys and Holden fights for, and struggles with. Identity crisis is one of the main similarities, because during Holden’s difficult journey he is struggling to figure out who he is and where he belongs at the same time that is exactly what the boys are doing in Dead Poet’s Society through poetry and acting. The loss of innocence is also shown in Dead Pets Society through the death

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