Rhetorical Analysis of Dead Poets Society PDF

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Rhetorical Analysis of Dead Poets Society

Trenton Ramoz-Longacre Grand Canyon University Eng-105: English Composition 1 Dr. Skeen OCT/5/2021 This movie portrays multiple great rhetorical devices, while showing all the elements of ethos, pathos, and logos it digs deep into other rhetorical devices through the main characters speech. The author is trying to relate to the audience through Mr. Keating, an English professor and his message of making every day extraordinary. Mr. Keating gives many speeches to his students about living their lives to the fullest, almost to a point of conviction because he sees how badly they need it. The boys find resemblance between themselves and Keating through the dead poets’ society and answer many proposals on the outlook of life. The intention of the film is to motivate the audience to live every day to the fullest and have no regrets when it comes to your happiness. This movie is very powerful because of how relative it is to people that have been in the overbearing situation of having your life planned out for you. Throughout the movie the teacher is repeatedly trying to enlighten the boys through his unconventional teaching methods, speeches, and poetry to motivate them to live more fulfilling lives. This is very important because it shows the impact teachers can make on adolescents in need of moral guidance. Summary In Tom Schulman’s film Dead Poets Society, he tells the story of how a young teacher named Mr. Keating inspires a group of students in his English Class through his unconventional

teachings on poetry. The Theme of this story is extremely dreary and desolate based on fictional Welton Academy all-boys prep school. This place was no vacation for anyone who attended, sent there to become who their parents set them out to be, living in an environment where freethinking was not allowed. The one character who struggled the most from these overbearing policies was Neil Perry, top of his senior class at Welton. Keating is portrayed as charismatic and very fun throughout many of his lectures. Unlike the other Realist thinking teachers, Keating is a stern believer in the idea of free-thinking, frequently encouraging the students to leave their comfort zones and rebel against the oppression they face. Keating ends up gaining the moral of the boys in his class through the “dead poets society”, a secret poetry club. The students that made up the English class were unbothered at first by the new teacher at Welton assuming he would be just like the rest of the cynic teachers. Keating established the credibility of his teaching methods by being different from the other teachers and choosing to care about his student’s outlook on life. At one point Keating says “Just when you think you know something, you have to look at it in another way, Even though it may seem silly or wrong, you must try” The author is using a proposal in this text to get the audience to start thinking about the idea of how things aren't always how they appear” (Schulman, Dead Poets Society, 1989, Tombstone Pictures) Keating tries to relate what he is teaching to something they already know, for example, reciting poetry to music while kicking a soccer ball. This is the use of ethos by the author to encourage the audience to root for Keating and his teaching methods and promote a free-thinking ideology. The recurring occasion of “dead poets society” is how the new English teacher, Mr. Keating is introduced to an all-boys elite preparatory school that is known for its realisticthinking traditions and high standards. Using non-traditional teaching methods to reach out to his

students who face enormous pressures from their parents and the school, Keating encourages students to break out of their shells, pursue their dreams and seize the day. The movie creates an unspoken challenge for its audience to live everyday free-thinking and to always do what makes you happy. The person that writes this type of writing comes from a conformist background and is attempting to flip the script on the ideologies he was taught. The genre of “dead poets society” is a teen/drama and emphasizes the growth of the students at Welton Academy and carries a tone and style of tension created by Welton’s strict authority over the students and the students' will to what makes them happy. It begins as mature and serious, highlighting the serious-strict atmosphere of the academy, but moves to a more carefree feeling when the boys are allowed to express themselves in private, and especially once they are in Keating's classes. Once Charlie publishes the unwanted article in the Welton Honor, things grow more tense and serious, and ultimately escalates into the sorrowness of Neil's suicide in the film's final scene. The style of the film is very relaxed and easy going, filled with joyful moments to highlight the effectiveness a good teacher has on their students. The audience of this film is a necessary consideration in determining if the message was successful, the target audience for a film like this would be young men fresh out of high school, drunk on art, filled with passion and still resentful of overbearing, conformist parents. I think a lot of us can relate in some way to being very passionate about something and it being undervalued in our parents or peers’ lives. Bitzer (1968) argued that two things are important to understand when you're looking at the Rhetorical audience. First two conditions must be met, a rhetorical audience “consisting only of those persons who are capable of discharge and mediators of change”. It is very prominent that the author uses relative content to close the distance

between the audience and the message, this allows the reader to develop a personal relationship with the ideology of the text. In “Dead Poets Society” a figure of speech is left to the audience to make the direct connection using the phrase “O Captain, my captain” to say goodbye to him at the film's end is an example of allusion to Walt Whitman mourning the loss of President Abraham Lincoln. In a direct parallel, the boys mourn the loss of a great teacher taken from them under terms that they consider unjust. In another example of parallelism used in the movie is on the first day of classes, we see a shot of a huge flock of birds taking to the sky, and then immediately we see the Welton students walking to class almost as if they were flocking as well. Parallelism is particularly important here because it usually simplifies the flow of the movie so the author can hold an audience's attention for longer and present their message in an understanding or relatable way. Parallelism is also important when a writer wants to emphasize the relationship between two or more ideas or things that are happening without directly stating them. In the film “Dead Poets Society” the argument types of ethics and cause-effect were crucial to the film's success. The key conflict in the movie is between Neil, a student who dreams of being an actor, and his father who orders his son to become a doctor and forbids him from his dream of one day becoming a professional actor. The father is strict, unrelenting, overbearing, and the son, lacking the will to defy him, kills himself. The ethical argument is that Neil really cares about his parents' approval and doesn't ever want to defy them even if it means never being able to live his dreams of becoming an actor. The cause and effect shown here is that if Neil obeys his father and becomes a doctor then he will make his father proud at the expense of his own happiness, but if he defies his father, he will live a happier life at the expense of never making his father proud.

In conclusion the “dead poets society” was a successful film and had even more success through its use of purposeful rhetoric throughout the film. Its use of genre, argument types, recurring occasion, choice of strategic allusion and meaningful speech has led the audience to believe in or at least consider the idea of “Carpe Diem” (seize the day) and live more fulfilling lives. Sources Javinski, James (2001) Sourcebook on rhetoric: key concepts in contemporary rhetorical studies, Sage Publications Page 68 (argument) Sarfraz, Manzoor (2013) My favorite film: Dead Poets Society, Guardian News & Media Limited Javinski, James (2001) Sourcebook on rhetoric: key concepts in contemporary rhetorical studies, Sage Publications Page 269 (Genre)...