Dead Poets Society

chilly courtyard. Mr. McAllister peered out
from his classroom door, shaking his head in annoyance.
    “People,“ Keating
said as the boys gathered around him. “A dangerous element of conformity has
been seeping into your work. Mister Pitts, Cameron, Overstreet, and Chapman,
line up over here please. ” He pointed to the four boys to stand near him. “On
the count of four, I want you to begin walking together around the courtyard.
Nothing to think about. No grade here. One, two, three, go!”
    The boys began
walking. They walked down one side of the courtyard, across the back, up the
other e> and across the front, completing the square.
    “That’s the way,”
Keating said. “Please continue.”
    The boys walked
around the courtyard again as the rest of the class and the teacher watched.
Soon they began to walk in step, a march-like cadence emanating from the
pavement. They continued in a one-two-three-four pattern as Keating began to
clap to the rhythm.
    “There it is... Hear
it?” he called, clapping louder in time. “One two, one two, one two, one two...
We re all having fun, in Mr. Keating’s class...”
    Sitting in his empty
classroom grading papers, McAllister observed the commotion through the window.
The four marchers picked up on their cadence. They lifted their legs high and
swung their arms back and forth, keeping the rhythm alive. The class joined in
clapping out the beat.
    Distracted by the
clapping and cheering, Dean Nolan put down his work and peered through the
window at the drill-team activity below. Nolan’s eyebrows furrowed as he
frowned at Keating clapping and shouting to the English class. What in the
world are they doing? he wondered.
    “All right, stop,”
Mr. Keating called to the marchers. “You may have noticed how at the beginning
Misters Overstreet and Pitts seemed to have a different stride than the
others—Pitts with his long lurches, Knox with that light little bounce—but soon
all were walking in the same cadence. Our encouragement made it even more
marked,” he pointed out.
    “Now, this
experiment was not to single out Pitts or Overstreet. What it demonstrates is
how difficult it is for any of us to listen to our own voice or maintain our
own beliefs in the presence of others. If any of you think you would have
marched differently, then ask yourself why you were clapping. Lads, there is a
great need in all of us to be accepted, but you must trust what is unique or
different about yourself, even if it is odd or unpopular. As Frost said, “ ‘Two
roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by,/And that has
made all the difference.’”
    The bell rang, but
the boys remained rooted in their spots, watching Keating and absorbing his
message. Then Keating saluted the class and walked off.
    Nolan moved away
from his window as the class dispersed. What do I do with this one? he
thought. McAllister, chuckling at Keating’s antics, returned to grading his
papers.
    The boys walked from
the courtyard to their next class. “Were meeting at the cave after dinner,”
Cameron said to Neil.
    “What time?”
    “Seven-thirty.”
    “I’ll pass it
along,” Neil said as he walked over to Todd.
    Later that night,
Todd, Neil, Cameron, Pitts, and Meeks sat around a fire in the cave, warming
their hands. A thick fog had moved in, and the trees swayed noisily from the
gusty wind.
    “It’s spooky out
tonight,” Meeks said with a shiver, moving closer to the fire. “Where’s Knox?”
    “Getting ready for
that party,” Pitts chuckled.
    “What about Charlie?
He’s the one who insisted on this meeting,” Cameron said.
    The others shrugged.
Neil opened the meeting: “1 went to the woods because I wanted to live
deliberately... to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...’” Neil
stopped short as he listened to a rustle in the woods. They all heard
something, and it sure wasn’t the wind. Funny, it sounded like a bunch of girls
giggling.
    “I can’t see a
thing,” a girl’s voice echoed into the cave.
    “It’s just over
here,“ the boys heard Charlie say.
    The fire glowed
brightly on the faces of the boys surrounding it as Charlie and two older girls
came giggling into the cave.
    Hey, guys, Charlie
said, holding his arm around the shoulder of a pretty blond, “meet Gloria
and...” He hesitated and looked at Gloria’s friend, a plain girl, with dark
hair and green eyes.
    “Tina,” she said
awkwardly, taking a drink from a can of