Dead Poet Society Notes

• Welton Academy, A small prestigious prep school in New England
• Very traditional with religious values
• Some of the boys are very young
• Tradition, Honer, Discipline, Excellence are on the banners carried in during the first scene where candles are lit to celebrate the "light of knowledge"
• 70 percent of graduating boys go onto Ivy league
• Neal's father is very controlling and forces him to quit the school newspaper, he thinks he is taking to many extracurricular
• Trigonometry, Latin, Chemistry, English, Fencing
• The students call it "Hell-ton"
• Mr. Keating tells his students to call him either, Mr. Keating or Oh Captain my Captain
• Carpe Diem, he has the students look at the photos of past students and emphasies the fact that they are pushing up daffodil "Seize the day, make your lives extraordinary"
• Mr. Keating, "We don't read and write poetry because its cute.....Poetry is beauty romance love passion"         "The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a  verse"                                 "The dead poets were dedicated to sucking the marrow out of life" 
• Knox Overstreet, Neal Perry, Richard Cameron, Pitts, Shirley,  Tom Anderson, Meeks
•  "We must constantly look at things in a different way"
• Neals father finds out he is in the play, A Midsummer's Night Dream, as Puck and orders him to quit. Neal goes to Mr. Keating and asks for advice, he tells Mr. Keating about his passion for acting. Mr. Keating tells him to tells his father "everything you just told me". 
•  After the play which was a rousing success, Neal is dragged off by his father who is angry at Mr. Keating and tells him "to stay away from my son". When they arrive home he tells Neal that he is withdrawing him from Welton, he is enrolling him in military school and that Neal is going to be a doctor. That his acting was over.
• Neal committed suicide 
• Mr. Keating is blamed for Neal's suicide and when he comes to collect his things from his classroom Todd calls him back, "Oh Captain My Captain". The every boy in the Dead Poet Society except Cameron stands on their desks. he thanks them.

                                                     END SCENE