Dead Poets Society

campus, you’ll be
expelled.”
    Todd’s parents and
Mr. Nolan watched Todd, waiting for him to change his mind. Todd sat silent. “I
won’t sign,” he said softly but firmly.
    “Then I’ll see you
back here after classes,” Nolan said, turning his back. “Leave.”
    Todd stood and
walked out the door. Nolan looked at Todd’s parents. “I’m sorry, Mr. Nolan,”
Mrs. Anderson said. “I can’t help but feel this is our fault.”
    “We never should
have sent him here,” Mr. Anderson said, looking down at the floor.
    “Nonsense,” Nolan
said. “Boys his age are highly impressionable. We’ll bring him around.”
     
    The next day, Mr.
McAllister led a group of Latin students across the snow-covered campus as they
repeated verbs out loud. He stopped and looked up at the teachers’ residence
floor where he noticed the lonely figure of Mr. Keating, watching out the
window. Their eyes met briefly. McAllister turned away, took a deep breath, and
resumed walking with the boys.
    Keating moved from
the window after seeing McAllister. He walked to his bookshelf and started to
take down his beloved books of poetry—Byron, Whitman, Wordsworth. He sighed and
put them back. Closing his suitcase, he walked to the door of the tiny room,
took one last look, and left.
    As Keating prepared
to leave, his former students were in English class. Todd sat numbly, eyes cast
downward, the way he had sat when school first began. Knox, Meeks, and Pitts
looked humiliated as they squirmed in their seats. All of the former club
members were too ashamed of themselves to even look at one another. Only
Cameron appeared halfway normal, studying at his desk as though nothing had
happened.
    Conspicuously
missing from the room were the desks that belonged to Neil and Charlie.
    The door opened
suddenly and Mr. Nolan walked in. The boys stood. Nolan sat at the teacher’s
desk, and they all sat down. “I will be taking over this class through exams,”
Nolan said as he looked around the room. “We will find a permanent English
teacher during the break. Who will tell me where you are in the Pritchard
textbook?”
    Nolan looked around.
There were no volunteers. “Mr. Anderson?”
    “The...
Pritchard...” Todd repeated, barely audible. He looked through his books,
fumbling nervously.
    “I can’t hear you,
Mr. Anderson,” Nolan said.
    “I... think...
we...” Todd said, still speaking softly.
    “Mr. Cameron,” Nolan
said, exasperated by Todd’s response, “kindly inform me.”
    “We skipped around a
lot, sir. We covered the romantics and some of the chapters on post-Civil War
literature.”
    “What about the
realists?” Nolan asked “I believe we skipped most of that,” Cameron said.
    Nolan stared at
Cameron and then looked around the class. “All right then, we’ll start over.
What is poetry?” He waited for an answer. No one volunteered. Suddenly the door
to the classroom opened, and Mr. Keating walked in.
    “I came for my
personals,” he said to Nolan. “Should I wait until after class?”
    “Get your things,
Mr. Keating,” Nolan said testily. He turned to the class. “Gentlemen, turn to
page 21 of the introduction. Mr. Cameron, read aloud the excellent essay by Dr.
Pritchard on understanding poetry.”
    “Mr. Nolan, that
page has been ripped out,” Cameron said.
    “Then borrow
somebody else’s book,” Nolan said, losing his patience.
    “They’re all ripped
out, sir,” Cameron reported.
    Nolan stared at
Keating. “What do you mean they’re all ripped out?”
    “Sir, we...” Cameron
started.
    “Never mind,
Cameron,” Nolan said. He handed his textbook to Cameron. “Read!” he ordered.
    “‘Understanding
Poetry’ by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, PhD. ‘To fully understand poetry, we must
first be fluent with its meter, rhyme, and figures of speech, then ask two
questions: 1) how artfully has the objective...“
    As Cameron continued
reading, Keating stood at the closet in the corner of the room, looking at the
students. He saw Todd, whose eyes were full of tears. He saw Knox, Meeks,
Pitts... still too ashamed to look him in the eye, but nevertheless, full of
emotion. He sighed. The irony of Nolan’s choosing the Pritchard essay just as
he walked in the room was just too incredible. He finished packing and walked
across the room toward the door. Just as Keating reached the door, Todd jumped
up.
    “Mr. Keating,” he
cried out, interrupting Cameron’s reading.
    “They made everybody
sign