DEAD POETS SOCIETY
Nowadays, everyone is worn out. Where silence is more oppressive than noise, where we scroll endlessly, and where expectations weigh us down until we are unable to distinguish whether our dreams are ours or someone else's. Then there's a movie like Dead Poets Society. Yes, it is old. Not out-of-date, though. Because it appeals to that unfiltered, hurting side of ourselves that we don't even show our friends—the side that silently wonders, "Is this all there is?"
When Robin Williams, as John Keating, walks into that classroom, I don’t see just a teacher. I see a man holding a lantern in a dark corridor, saying, “Look, there’s another way to live.” And that hits different today because more than ever, we’re told to measure our worth in grades, in jobs, in productivity, in how busy we look. And yet here’s this voice saying: No. Poetry, love, passion, words—these are what keep you alive.
Literature as Survival in a Burnout World
Right now, everything seems to be a race: a race to succeed, a race to earn, a race to show that our lives are worthwhile. Nevertheless, we wind up squandering it in this never-ending pursuit. This is where literature comes in—not as a luxury or a decorative element, but as a means of survival. In Dead Poets Society, Keating taught oxygen in addition to poetry. The kind of oxygen that we are gasping for without realizing it until someone slams it in our face and tells us to breathe.
And if you go back in time, you'll see that numerous voices attempted to accomplish just that. Consider Sylvia Plath, who tried to use words to find a way out of her misery. The world she attempted to give voice to drowned out Virginia Woolf's efforts to break the silence of women's lives. Or Oscar Wilde, whose fervent belief in freedom and beauty caused society to crush him for defying its norms. Even Nietzsche was ridiculed, misinterpreted, and allowed to crumble under the weight of his own ideas. In his own way, he was also saying carpe diem.
Like Keating, they all told us that life was about more than jobs, grades, and other people's approval. However, society did not pardon them. People who talk too loudly about freedom are rarely forgiven by society.
And isn't that still the case today? Corporate ladders, social media perfection, and constant comparisons are all part of our burnout culture. We call that a life because we chase numbers: followers, money, degrees. The human heart, however? It is going hungry. We scroll at midnight because we're empty, not because we're bored. We feel bad about taking breaks, being sluggish, and just being human.
Dead Poets Society continues to tear something open inside of us because of this. Because it makes us think of all the voices that have come before us—the poets, the rebels, the people who have paid the price and it poses the question: Will you allow the world to silence you too, or will you take a stand at that desk and change the way you view the world?
Neil Perry: Every Child of Expectation
Neil's story is real. Now is the time. The student, who has a passion for art, is compelled to pursue engineering. The medical school student who writes songs in secret at night. The twenty-something who doesn't say anything at the dinner table because their parents won't get it. Under the sentence, "This is not what you're supposed to want," Neil represents everyone who has been crushed.
Additionally, his ending is painful because it isn't a "cinematic tragedy." It's true. Too authentic. We simply scroll past it in the news, even though we hear about it every day. Another young life lost because the weight of expectations overrode the heart's cries. Neil is more than just a character because of this. You can't avoid it.
Todd Anderson: The Silent Generation
And Todd—God, Todd is us. Not loud, not rebellious, not breaking things. Just silent. Just invisible. Just waiting for someone to say, “You matter. Your voice matters.” In him, I see every quiet kid who feels overshadowed. Every adult who still hides their ideas because they’re terrified of ridicule. Every one of us who has stayed quiet in rooms where we should have spoken.
His trembling breakthrough, when he finally lets his words spill out, is messy and imperfect. But that’s what makes it real. Because courage doesn’t arrive clean—it arrives shaking. And isn’t that exactly what we need today? To stop waiting to be perfect before we speak, before we live?
Robin Williams: The Teacher I Needed But Never Had
Robin Williams as John Keating feels personal in a way that cuts deep. Watching him, I ache, not because he is on screen, but because he reminds me of what I never had. I never had a teacher who looked at me and saw more than grades, more than my rank in a classroom, more than the “safe path” that everyone kept pushing me toward. I had teachers who measured me, who corrected me, who told me what not to do.
But I never had someone like Keating, someone who looked at a student and saw a whole human being.
Keating is the teacher who tells you that your voice matters when the world has already convinced you it doesn’t. He tells you that your passion isn’t foolishness, it isn’t rebellion, it isn’t a weakness to hide — it’s the only thing that makes you truly alive. He reminds you that your life is not a script written by parents, society, or institutions. It’s yours. Entirely yours.
And maybe that’s why this role feels unforgettable, almost painful. Because the world gave us plenty of teachers who told us to be “realistic.” To stop dreaming. To think about the future, about stability, about how one wrong move could ruin everything. But Keating? He told us the opposite. He told us to live. To risk. To feel. To chase what stirs our soul even if nobody claps for it.
And for so many of us, that’s the guidance we were desperate for but never received. We went through classrooms that killed our spark instead of igniting it. We learned to hide our questions instead of asking them. We learned to doubt our talents instead of chasing them. Keating, even as a fictional character, feels like a wound because he’s proof of what education could have been, and what it still should be.
Robin Williams didn’t just act in this role; he bled something of himself into it. You can feel it. The warmth in his eyes, the quiet belief in every student, the ability to turn poetry into survival. That wasn’t just Keating, that was Williams. And maybe that’s why it hurts even more. Because we know now how much pain he carried within him, yet he still gave us hope, still told us to live, even while he struggled to keep living himself.
This Film Still Hurts. Why?
Dead Poets Society lingers because it forces us to face the one question we keep running from: Am I really living? Or am I just performing life the way others expect me to?
It’s not about standing on desks for the aesthetic. It’s about daring to see life differently when the world tells you not to. It’s about not killing your Neil. It’s about not silencing your Todd. It’s about finding the guts to say: this life is mine, and I will not waste it.
Carpe diem is not motivational wallpaper. It’s a bruise, a scar, a reminder of how short it all is. And maybe that’s why the film haunts me—it doesn’t let me go back to sleep.
Last but not the least — "Oh Captain! My Captain! You will be missed."
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