half of a roll

(if you get a notif for my acc, dw I didn't doxx myself- it's an alt. just ignore it ^^)

Whether it was just the nostalgic visuals, the song playing in the background (September Song by the talented Agnes Obel), or a mix of both- it honestly invoked a different view of the film in me.

The story of these kids finding passion admist suppression - I applied it to a larger picture. I think that the whole film/book was an overarching metaphor that mirrors our lives as human beings living in modern societies.

We are the kids. No matter our ages. We all come from different backgrounds and have different specific struggles, but in the end, are our struggles as a whole that different? Look at Neil and Todd, for example. Todd is the other sibling; he'll never be his older brother in his parents and society's (the school's) eyes. He carries a burden and an immense amount of pressure. And Neil? Different situation. He is the golden/only child; he carries that on his shoulders as well. Although their situations can be deemed opposites, they both are similar in the way that society has put massive pressure on them. Sound familiar? Yeah, one of the main reasons most of the dps audience can relate to them so much (and ALL of the other kids) is because of how much of a burden our society throws on us even as we grew up.

Notice how there are so many different personalities in the students; from anxious Todd, confident Charlie, rule-follower Cameron, to even Hopkins (unleash your inner "a cat sat on the mat"), I feel like everyone watching the film can relate even in part to at least one of these characters. These kids are a perfect way to express different types of people put under societal pressure and how they react differently (more on that later)

Queue Mr. Keating! Ah yes. I think we all have or will have a Mr. Keating in our lives. Mr. Keating symbolises pure inspiration. Our first and strongest taste of "what could be" if we only took the burden of society and threw it out the window. Despite the school (which represents society as a whole) trying to enforce its normalities and trying to fit us in a single tightly-packed conformity, we have that one inspiration admist the system that gives us passion. Does the system like this? No, not at all. This taste of freedom, that is already limited, is giving us reasons to be curious: "What could I become, who could I become, if I didn't conform?". Curiousity can be easily concealed, luckily. Confidence is what the people in control see first. Our "paces" change.

Confidence mixed with curiosity is the most powerful weapon against a static society.

We all don't react the same to this mix. Some of us take a path of full rebellion. Those people are able to break out of the system successfully when they want to. This is the path that Charlie Dalton symbolises. All he needed was that spark of inspiration (again, represented by Mr. Keating) to completely face society head-on, smirking. He got expelled from the school on his own accord. (I will add, I'm not saying this path is easier than the others. How you react to inspiration does not equal the burden you took on prior or during exposure to it) Some also have a path of confidence- however, they don't make the best decisions with their new freedom. This is a result of being oppressed for so long; the explosive taste of "possibility" clouds their judgement. Knox, fortunately, learned along the way, as most people who take his path do.

Probably the most explored in the film: others, well, they don't face societal expectations head-on. They want to. With every fibre of their being, they need to. They can go on either path; play by the system's rules until they acquire more freedom (Todd), or give up. Neil; he couldn't break out of society, but he couldn't live in it either. His method of escape was not like Charlie's. Neil believed that society was a heavy curtain draped on all people and couldn't be lifted up to let them breathe. Suffocation. Many people take this path. We see it everywhere.

Dead Poet's Society is full of so many different paths taken by so many of the students and those around them - it's all to show how we react differently to the world's pressure and burden.