1. Reader Reaction: I suppose that sometimes the parts are overacted, but they called for that sort of thing. Teenagers are annoying; I hope that someday we grow up to be more soothing individuals. Teenagers have a sharp stupidity in their speech and stuff. The film is dry, red, and saltily powerful. It is deep drama salted with humour.

2. Plot: Professor Keating is hired to Welton Academy to replace and reconstruct the English department. In a linear school, these efforts, and the kids that are influenced by his freedom, are not appreciated. Tensions mount with every lesson they learn.

3. Character: Primary: Keating – non-conformist, teacher, ex-Hellton grad, ex-member of the dead-poets society; Neil – only son, to be a doctor by force of father, wants to act, extraverted, optimistic, highly decorated, straight A’s; Todd – younger son (older son quite impressive), introverted, scared, son of a richer family. Secondary: Meeks – smart, linear, scared, honour code bound; Pitts – flunks a lot, Meeks helps him, not good at school, better at tech; Knox – looks like father, going to be a lawyer, lovesick with Kris; Kris – Knox’s love affair, respectable family, public school, practicaly engaged to Chet; Chet – bully, foot-ball player, strong; Charlie/Nwanda/Nuanda/Nuwanda – non-conformist, rebel, loves to push envelope.

4. Setting: Welton is a preparatory academy for college where approximately fifty percent of graduates enter Ivy League schools. It is a boarding school that accepts children from a very young age. Its creeds are ‘tradition, honour, discipline, and excellence.’ The kids are not so enthusiastic about these confining premises.

5. Point of View: Omniscient Limited to Major Characters.

6. Objects/Events:

*Neil/Todd – Neil is an extraverted optimist relatively unafraid and full of dreams. Though he is relatively unafraid, he hates confrontation and feels alone in his word because of his father’s plans for him. Todd is an introverted, scared individual. He desperately wants Keating to be right (Neil is sure of it), but he’s not sure how well he can embrace it. He is a slow-warming personality, but builds roots quite deeply when he does develop them.

*Dreams compared – Neil wants to be happy. That is his dream. He wants to be the humblest member of the place he wants to be. Todd wants to be accepted and loved. He wants to be somewhere that he is valuable and nearly invisible. Meeks simply wants to be respectable; thinks along the lines of the school. Neil doesn’t understand Todd.

*Christian motif – ‘tradition, honour, discipline, excellence’ Schools is a thinly-veiled Christian academy. Psalm twenty-three is sung at the funeral. Paintings shown at beginning are Renaissance style and pose. Food is prayed for. ‘Monastic oath’ of small room for Keating.

*Contrasts – tradition, honour, discipline, excellence; travesty, horror, decadence, excrement. Welton;Hellton

*Metaphor – flock of geese compared to loud, squawking students.

*1812 Overture whistled by Keating

*Keating teaching inside/outside? Outside is freer with more laughter. Keating speaks more informally and with less organization. Students speak.

*Individual vs. Group: Group dissatisfaction and rebellion; feed on each other; on own, more accepting of new ideas; more scared by themselves

*Nature vs. Science: practicality vs. dreams; cleanliness vs. freedom; nature is closer to trueself (e.g. Neil opening window and donning a wreath before suicide)

*Use of time: bells (7 counts), old photographs (ticking in the background, death (Carpe deim, ‘food for worms’), yearbooks, memory (‘amnesia lane’), dream (‘Robin shall restore amends’), weather, migrating geese, clocks peppered around school.

*Bells symbology: beginning of term, beginning of classes, end of first D.P.S. meeting, alarum for end of class, transition to dream (bike ride).

*Perception of reality: ‘not a cynic…a realist’ not everyone can be an artist, therefore artistry should not be encouraged.

*Use of ‘O Captain’: Keating, in a way, knows that he shall not last long. Also used as foreshadowing to signify that he shall be defeated (technically), but shall succeed.

*LIght/Dark: ‘light of knowledge’ hidden/ revealed/ inspiration.

*Circles/lines: lines for other teachers; circles for freedom and Keating

*Keating Camera Angle – camera on student, camera above him, circles on face, from back of class.

*Virgins – used to talk about them, for most of them are virgins, it seems.

*Bagpipe is a transition

*patriarch with mouth wide open in opening ceremony.

7. Mood: IIt’s always tense, but it does go from things being very good to very bad.

8. Ideas: Stiflings of tradition: tradition is old idea; ideas should be had upon one’s own. Importance of dreams: it is better to be in the lowest place where you want to be than be the highest place of where you don’t want to be.

9. Style: Neo-sophisticated, neo-romantic. Realism is thrown away.

10. Music: Music is kept relatively subtle (bagpipes blaring exception) until the final scene where everyone stands on their desks. The music becomes grand and loud. That is the written score, though. Several classical pieces are used as well as rock n’ roll.

11. Camera Angle: When Keating takes the class out to the hallway, the angle is from the ceiling. Camera turns on its axis a lot. When students are fist entered into class, the camera is on the teacher. Camera on students a lot during Keating’s class.

12. Lighting: Lighting is used as knowledge and enlightenment.

13. Worldview: Romantic Humanism: ideas are grander than they actually are. Humanity is the measure of everything, and every day is limited. The only thing that humanity is capable of, they have to be capable of in one lifetime, for they all die quickly.