A movie that relates to transcendentalism is “The Dead Poets Society” which is about a group of boys in private school. They encounter one specific teacher Mr. Keating, who is a little different than most teachers.
Mr. Keating wanted to inspire the motivation to look past what society was telling them to do rather than teaching them the normal curriculum in each school. He used Thoreau’s ideas on transcendentalism by showing them to go above and beyond the rules that society created and for each boy to create their own independence. Mr. Keating succeeded in teaching each boy to think for themselves. “Dead Poets Society” relates the idea of self-reliance throughout the movie “Now, I want you to find your own walk right now” (Dead Poets Society) telling them to find their own walk because they are their own person and dont follow others. Mr. Keating really wants each of the boys to hear something different rather than what other people are telling them “I brought them up here to illustrate the point of conformity: the difficulty in maintaining your own beliefs in the face of others” (Dead Poets Society) Mr. Keating does this for them because he wants each of the boys to follow their hearts.
All of his lessons in teaching the boys have the idea of non-conformity, which is the importance of his teachings “I stand upon my desk to remind you that we must constantly look at things in a different way” (Dead Poets Society). At the end of the movie, losing Mr.Keating as a teacher he leave the classroom while turning around hearing Todd saying “O captain, my captain!” (Dead Poets Society) while him standing on the decks, and getting a handful of boys standing on their desks as well showing Mr.Keating that he made a difference in each of the boys life. Overall, “Dead Poets Society” supports the transcendentalism of self-reliance and individualism of each of the boys and the blind conformity that they can not see, but also the idea that one can find truth anywhere and beauty in nature.
