At the first turning point in “Dead Poets Society,” John Keating (Robin Williams) famously quotes 19th century poet Walt Whitman’s “O Me! O Life!” in a serendipitous attempt at spurring the lives of his young students. Huddled in between the desks of his classroom, he recites with passion, “Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring, / Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish / … / What good amid these, O me, O life?”
I remember the first time having heard these lines, I did not think much of them. As a 12-year-old, I could not yet fathom the poem’s existential dread — that, among the billions of people that walk this earth, I am just a single being, inconceivable and forgotten and thus powerless in the face of mortality. Back then, the poem just sounded pretty to me.
Now, I have crossed into a new decade of my life, an age where to reject the question Whitman offers has become a mere impossibility. Young adults across the globe stand at the same juncture, faced both with endless promises for the future and an obligation to make it better than what we inherited, and nowhere is this more true than in institutions such as this one. Colleges and universities breed innovation and hope, but what perplexes me the most is the almost entirely hopeless reality that is the present. What are we to do when the irreversible must be reversed, when “greatness” has lost its good and when promise has become impossibility?
For the characters in “Dead Poets Society,” there comes a point where each must choose a path they are to follow. Todd Anderson (Ethan Hawke), the new kid initially afraid of speaking out, learns the importance of standing up for one’s beliefs by the end of the film, as literally seen in the iconic scene, “Oh Captain! My Captain!” Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard), the embodiment of “carpe diem” — the phrase a favorite of Mr. Keating as well as an integral theme within the film — disobeys his stringent family to pursue his dreams of acting. To them and to many of the other Dead Poets, it seems the answer to this question is simple: As they say, “carpe diem.”
But for Bruins, could the solution be so simple? The film is, after all, as much about privilege as it is about passion. White, generationally-wealthy men at a boarding school in Vermont grappling with the constraints of an already given future — indeed, “seize the day” was made entirely for them.
In reality, the freedom to pursue such an ideal is not afforded to many. Take Neil, for example. Continually pressured by the expectations of his father, he crumbles and loses his spark. Once so full of life and ambition, he retreats into the skin on which he once wore his heart so proudly. In the end, he takes his own life.
In this way, the film acts as a cautionary tale where the repression of individuality leads most often to dire consequences, in the same way that unrestrained idealism can be dangerous, too. However, even Neil had the security of an education, his career path guaranteed, whether or not he pursued acting. Most people do not have that. Most people do not go to boarding school and most people are not white, male and generationally wealthy. These are instead the people that, under reality’s cruel confines, cannot afford to dream.
Yet, here we are — here I am — at UCLA, at one of the most prestigious public universities in the nation. Though we may come from vastly different backgrounds, and though I’m sure no one person has experienced the same hardship, we are all here. Colleges and universities breed innovation and hope. As Whitman says, the world may be filled with trains of the faithless and cities of the foolish. Is this, then, not our chance to change that — here, privileged with the burden of our education?
For myself, it is not this responsibility that I doubt, but rather my place within it. There are 8 billion people in the world, after all; even here, I am but a single identity. Despite wishing to “suck the marrow out of life,” as Keating quotes, I can only do so much.
But life is so much more than what we owe to the world. “Dead Poets Society” is a stratified, cautionary tale, yes, but it knows there is nothing more important than dreams. Keating says to this, “But only in their dreams can men be truly free. ‘Twas always thus, and always thus will be.’” We owe this to ourselves, too.
So maybe it is that we do not need to reverse what cannot be reserved, to churn ‘good’ back into ‘greatness,’ or to give unto promise in spite of impossibility. Maybe we do not need to do anything at all except understand that this is where life begins, that we must do all that we can to make the most of what we have right now because we are able. Because we are here. If we do, maybe we have found our resolve.
Whitman writes, “Answer. / That you are here—that life exists and identity, / That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” Or, as John Keating says, “Make your lives extraordinary.”
