On Multiple Confilicts in Dead Poets Society

Abstract

The film Dead Poets Society reflects the dilemma confronted by American education in the 20th century, where traditional education makes students lose their identities. From the perspective of studying multiple conflicts, the conflict between new ideologies of the protagonist Keating and traditional ones is the foreshadowing of other conflicts. The film presents old and new ideologies, obedience and resistance and the one between being realistic and being romantic, as alternative interpretations of the educational dilemma. Keating’s pursuit of freedom and opposition to traditional cognitive orientations have contributed to the student’s self-awakening and projected the stranglehold of traditional education on the student’s nature.