Dead Poets Society

poor imagination is a dim substitute for you.
Oh, how I miss you and wish—’”
    Charlie kept reading
as the other boys heard the door creak open. They backed away from Charlie, who
suddenly stopped reading when he saw Keating standing in the doorway.
    “Hello! Mr. Keating!
Good to see you!” Charlie cried.
    Keating walked over
to him and calmly took the letter, folded it, and put it in his pocket. “A
woman is a cathedral, boys. Worship one at every chance you get,” Keating said.
He walked to his bureau, opened a drawer and put the letter in. “Anything else
you’d care to rifle through, Mr. Dalton?” he asked, looking at Charlie.
    “I’m sorry,” Charlie
apologized. “I, we...” Charlie looked around for help. Neil stepped forward.
    “O Captain! My
Captain, we came here so I could talk to you about something,” he explained.
    “Okay,” Keating
said, looking at the group. “All of you?”
    “Actually, I’d like
to talk to you alone,” Neil said, looking back at the boys. Charlie and the
others looked relieved to leave.
    “I gotta go study,”
Pitts said. “Yeah,” the rest of the boys added. “See you, Mr. Keating.”
    They all hurried out
and closed the door behind them. “Drop by any time,” Keating said as they left.
    “Thank you, sir,”
they called back through the closed door.
    Pitts punched
Charlie in the shoulder. “Damn it, Nuwanda, you idiot!” he said.
    “I couldn’t stop
myself,” Charlie shrugged.
    Keating couldn’t
help smiling to himself. Neil paced back and forth, looking around. “Gosh,” he
said. “They don’t give you much room around here, do they?”
    “Maybe they don’t
want worldly things distracting me from my teaching.” Mr. Keating smiled wryly.
    “Why do you do it?”
Neil asked. “I mean, with all this seize-the-day business, I’d have thought
you’d be out seeing the world or something.”
    “Ah, but I am seeing
the world, Neil. The new world. Besides, a place like this needs at least one
teacher like me.” He smiled at his own joke. “Did you come here to talk about
my teaching?”
    Neil took a deep
breath. “My father is making me quit the play at Henley Hall. When I think
about Carpe Diem and all that, I feel like I’m in prison! Acting is everything
to me, Mr. Keating. It’s what I want to do! Of course, I can see my father’s
point, We’re not a rich family like Charlie’s. But he’s planned the rest of my
life for me, and he’s never eyen asked me what I want!”
    “Have you told your
father what you just told me? About your passion for acting?” Mr. Keatingasked.
    “Are you kidding?
He’d kill me!”
    “Then you’re playing
a part for him, too, aren’t you,” Keating observed softly. The teacher watched
as Neil paced anxiously. “Neil, I know this seems impossible, but you have to
talk to your father and let him know who you really are,” Keating said.
    “But, I know what
he’ll say. He’ll say that acting is just a whim and that it’s frivolous and
that I should forget about it. He’ll tell me how they’re counting on me and to
put it out of my mind, ‘for my own good. ”
    “Well,” Keating
said, sitting on his bed. “If it’s more than a whim, prove it to him. Show him
with your passion and commitment that it’s what you really want to do. If that
doesn’t work, at least by then you’ll be eighteen and able to do what you
want.”
    “Eighteen! What
about the play? The performance is tomorrow night!“
    “Talk to him, Neil,”
Keating urged.
    “Isn’t there an
easier way?” Neil begged.
    “Not if you’re going
to stay true to yourself.”
    Neil and Keating sat
silent for a long time. “Thanks, Mr. Keating, ” Neil finally said. “I have to
decide what to do.”
    While Neil spoke
with Mr. Keating, Charlie, Knox, Pitts, Todd, and Cameron headed out to the
cave. Snow was falling, and a soft white blanket seemed to protect the earth
from the cold wind that howled through the valley.
    The boys scattered
around the candle-lit cave, each busy doing his own thing. No one called the
meeting to order. Charlie blew sad, melodious notes on his saxophone. Knox sat
in one corner, mumbling to himself, as he worked furiously on a love poem to
Chris. Todd sat alone writing something too. Cameron studied. Pitts stood at
the wall, scratching a quotation from a book into the stone.
    Cameron looked at
his watch. “Ten minutes to curfew,” he reminded them. No one moved.
    “What are you
writing?” Knox