We can say that of the two characters in Dead Poet’s Society
who were psychologically analyzed the most, one of them was Neil. Throughout
the first scenes we see that Neil has some personal issues with his father and
the things he has planned for him. His external journey can be said to be the
fact that his father has his whole life planned for him, he wants him to finish
high school, go to Harvard, and last but not least finish Medical School, and
has never even asked Neil if that’s what he wants.
When Neil hears this his only response to his father was: “That’s almost ten more years”. I understand his response to his father because when you have certain internal journeys of your own interests in life, like acting was for Neil, having to spend ten of your most precious years doing something that you don’t want to be doing can be really tough because you will always know that you could have done more. These interests Neil has acquired may be considered part of his internal journey in finding his true identity, an identity that is not based on his father’s choices, which is considered his external journey.
If we take the second of the most psychologically analyzed characters, we end up with Mr. Keating, who has an external journey with the school’s faculty and the students’ parents. Mr. Keating has to deal with the fact that he is teaching at an all male school in which most of the faculty consists of older men that have certain methods which they consider to be the correct ones but Mr. Keating has other unorthodox teaching methods. The external journey Keating has with the students’ parents is the fact that along with his unorthodox teaching methods he is inciting the kids to think outside the box their parents have assembled for them. An example for this is Neil’s case, in which he incites him on achieving his dream of acting and on telling his father what he really thinks he should do in life. The advice that Keating gives Neil about confronting his father and telling him the things he really wants to do in life may be Keating’s internal journey given the fact that it is because of his advice that Neil doesn’t have the guts to confront his father but instead decides to use his father’s gun to kill himself, putting Mr. Keating in a tight spot because of what he has put on the children’s mind since he first told them to seize the day.
When Neil hears this his only response to his father was: “That’s almost ten more years”. I understand his response to his father because when you have certain internal journeys of your own interests in life, like acting was for Neil, having to spend ten of your most precious years doing something that you don’t want to be doing can be really tough because you will always know that you could have done more. These interests Neil has acquired may be considered part of his internal journey in finding his true identity, an identity that is not based on his father’s choices, which is considered his external journey.
If we take the second of the most psychologically analyzed characters, we end up with Mr. Keating, who has an external journey with the school’s faculty and the students’ parents. Mr. Keating has to deal with the fact that he is teaching at an all male school in which most of the faculty consists of older men that have certain methods which they consider to be the correct ones but Mr. Keating has other unorthodox teaching methods. The external journey Keating has with the students’ parents is the fact that along with his unorthodox teaching methods he is inciting the kids to think outside the box their parents have assembled for them. An example for this is Neil’s case, in which he incites him on achieving his dream of acting and on telling his father what he really thinks he should do in life. The advice that Keating gives Neil about confronting his father and telling him the things he really wants to do in life may be Keating’s internal journey given the fact that it is because of his advice that Neil doesn’t have the guts to confront his father but instead decides to use his father’s gun to kill himself, putting Mr. Keating in a tight spot because of what he has put on the children’s mind since he first told them to seize the day.
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