Dead Poets Society Parental Pressure

The highly rated film Dead Poets Society, directed by Peter Weir has explored the impact of parents’ high demands for children. Through the two protagonists of the film, the audience might well be inclined to see that the predetermined values from parents can have a negative impact on children. Constant parental pressure to fulfil their vision of success limits their children’s abilities, change and weakens their personality, and impact their relationship with others.

Parent’ vision of success had limited Neil and Todd’s abilities.In the film, we often see Neil’s father rejecting his son’s interests and hobbies in order to get him to concentrate on his studies and ‘focus into getting in medical school’. For instance, Neil’s role on becoming
Both boys are great individuals with really strong abilities, however, neither of them were able to showcase their personality to everyone. Neil’s leader-like personality is evident to all of his peers, but it would shy away whenever he was with his father. He had never once shown his courageous side to his parents, not even in their arguments, Neil would always just reluctantly obey. Even on the last day of his life, he did not step up to his father when he had the chance to and in the end, he chose to suicide presumably as a means of relieving himself from his father’s controlling grasp. Todd’s unique characteristics were also concealed because of his fear of his parents. As he was always under the shadow of his high-achieving brother, his parents never took the time to care for him. Thus, at the beginning of the film, Todd was portrayed as a shy and timid boy who had no self-confidence. Even Keating had mentioned that “Mr. Anderson thinks that everything inside of him is worthless and embarrassing.” His personality as a leader was only unleashed through Keating’s romantic teaching methods and shown when he stepped up on his desk and cried “Oh captain, my captain” to defy the principal at the end of the film. However, before meeting Keating, Todd was still under the realist and strict mindset that most of the teachers at Welton and his parents have. If his parents had been kinder and did not have such high parental values, Todd’s characteristics of a leader would have shown a long time ago, he would have had the confidence to achieve great things and not feel that he was worthless. Through the two young teens, it is evident that parents’ constrain made children lack the confidence to show their full personality to