Obedience in The Movie Dead Poets Society

Within the movie Dead Poets Society, obedience is one of the major ideas being presented. Specifically involving Neil Perry, a popular and idealistic student at Welton Academy. The research of Stanley Milgram and Erich Fromm depicts how human individuality is frequently blocked by the obedience of individuals and how others feel towards a higher power or authority. Throughout the movie, Neil tens to stay consistent and not undergo a change in his character. Based on the study of Erich Fromm, author of “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem,” he mentions how behavior changes when authoritative figures are present. Stanley Milgram, author of “The Perils of Obedience,” claims obedience only occurs with the specific presence of another individual. However, both authors would agree that Neil was pressured to do things he did not want to do and obey higher authorities, most specifically his father, Mr. Perry.

The film opens up with Welton Academy at the beginning of a new school year and all of the boys moving into their dorm rooms. After Neil, a straight-A student and all-around popular guy enter his room, all the guys stop by to visit and talk with him. He is always surrounded by energy and laughter no matter where he goes when his father isn’t around. Mr. Perry’s presence turns Neil from a very talkative and carefree guy into a quiet and obedient person. When his father tells him that it’s time to give up the yearbook and all other extracurriculars to focus on his studies, to become something Neil doesn’t want to be. He briefly puts up a fight, but then starts to think that there is no point in trying to disagree, so he goes along with his father and does just as he says.

In Stanley Milgram’s experiment over obedience, he recruited subjects from various walks of life by posting an ad in a newspaper. Participants were told the experiment would study the effects of punishment on learning ability. Although participants thought they had an equal chance of playing the role of a student or teacher, the process was manipulated so that all participants ended up being the teacher role. The learner was an actor working with the experiment. 'Teachers' were asked to generate increasingly severe electric shocks to the 'learner' when questions were answered incorrectly. In actual fact, the only electric shocks delivered in the experiment were single 45-volt shock samples given to every teacher. In general, more submission was elicited from 'teachers' when the authority figure was nearby, teachers felt they could pass on responsibility to others, and experiments took place under the auspices of a respected organization. From Milgram’s experiment, it was discovered that obedience to authority is a powerful and realistic thing.

“The most far-reaching consequence is that the person feels responsible to the authority directing him but feels no responsibility for the content of the actions that the authority did prescribes” (pg.77). Milgram’s quote stated above relates to the scene because in this case Mr. Perry is the authority figure or the person of a higher power, and Neil just has to accept the fact that his father’s word is what goes. Since his father stated that he is to give up/ drop all extracurriculars, even though that’s the last thing he would ever want to do, Neil is supposed to obey his words and do exactly that. As any teenage boy would have done, Neil started to voice his viewpoint and concern and it was quickly shut down by his father and Neil was to go along with it, although he would never admit that he was the one to make that decision.

The next scene is towards the middle of the movie and involves Neil, Mr. Perry, and Mr. Keating, a young English teacher that teaches at his alma mater. Welton Academy’s strict policies start to wear on the boys, as Mr. Keating, or as they call him, “Captain”, attempts to teach the boys to think independently and begins to expand their thoughts to think outside of the box. Keating encourages the boys to live their lives by implanting one phrase in their minds, Carpe Diem which means seize the say. From Neil having Mr. Keating as a teacher, he learned a lot about poetry and English along with simple life lessons that may not have been things that are taught in school. Since Neil trusts and looks up to Keating, he talked to him about how he is in a play although his father found out and doesn’t approve of him continuing with it, this is Neil’s passion and what he is really interested in. Keating advises Neil to talk to his father and express his interest in acting. Neil does just that and comes back to talk to Keating saying, “I just talked to my father. He’s making me quit the play at Henley Hall. Acting’s everything to me. But he doesn’t know. I can see his point, we’re not a rich family like Charlie’s. But he’s planning the rest of my life for me and he’s never asked me what I want.” Keating and Neil proceed to have a conversation about him and communicating with his father and they come to the consensus that Neil wants to talk to his father but he just doesn’t know-how.

The third and final scene is towards the end of the film and is when Neil gets the lead role in the play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Henley Hall. Even though Neil had a great performance, he still struggled with the confidence of his own dream. Mr. Perry shows up to watch Neil’s play and from his facial expressions, it was blatantly obvious he didn’t want anything to do with the play or his son being a part of it. Once the curtains closed Mr. Perry asked a worker to go get Neil and so they did. When Neil met up with his father, he was told that they were headed home and he wasn’t allowed to go back with all of the boys from Welton that came to support him. As soon as they got home Mr. Perry proceeds to tell Neil that he will no longer be acting and will be enrolled in military school, he doesn’t even try to fight it even though he knows that his dream is to act. Neil decides that the only way for him to have complete control is by taking his own life away, rather than continuously having to live this life of things that he had no interest in pursuing. From this scene Erich Fromm’s quote, “Hence the obedience which is only rooted in the fear of force must be transformed into one rooted in man’s heart” (pg.127) greatly supports the whole idea of obedience. This quote ties well to the scene because in Neil’s situation he was in fear. He was afraid that he would never be able to live his own life and his whole life would just consist of his father living through him. Mr. Perry was very hard on Neil because he wanted him to become all of these things and be the best of the best at whatever he chose for him. Whereas Neil’s mindset was to just follow his heart and passion, which was acting and continuing to do plays but that was the only thing his father said he could not do.

After looking into all of these scenes, it circles back to my question from the beginning of the paper. Why did Neil not say anything/ argue with his father about certain situations? From digging deep into Milgram and Fromm’s articles it can be concluded that either Neil was just afraid to confront his father in fear of what the consequence would be or he believed that if he would just obey his father and not disobey that when he did make a “mistake” or just not agree with his father that it would make the result better.