Summary
In the next scene, Knox rides a bike down a country road in front of trees shedding leaves and flies down a hill, whooping and hollering as a huge flock of birds takes to the sky. He arrives at a school parking lot filled with football players and cheerleaders, including Chris Noel from the evening at the Danburys' house. He sees her jump into the arms of Chet Danbury, which deters him, and he leaves.
Keating brings the boys out to the athletic fields with a bag of balls. He distributes pieces of paper with bits of poetry on them to the boys and has them line up, recite the lines with vigor, and then kick a ball one at a time. When they hesitate, he encourages them to be bolder. Pitts, Meeks, and the others yell enthusiastically. Dalton bellows his to the skies. The scene then switches to Neil running through the dorm hallways announcing that he got the main part of Puck in the play. He immediately goes to his room and types out a fake letter from his father giving him permission to be in the play.
A shot of the sun setting over the lake with the bagpiper playing on a dock opens the next scene. Todd paces in his room, reciting his original poem from a piece of paper. After a moment, he stops, seeming discouraged, and tears it up. Next we move to Keating’s class, where Knox reads a romantic poem at the front of the class dedicated to Chris Noel. As he concludes it, he seem to lose his enthusiasm, crumpling the paper up and barely getting out the last words. Keating commends him for a good effort. Another student stands and reads, “The cat sat on the mat,” and sits again. Keating takes the moment to explain that simplicity can be excellent as long as it’s not ordinary. He calls Todd up to read his poem. Todd admits he didn’t write one. Keating writes Whitman’s phrase, “I sound my barbaric YAWP over the rooftops of the world” on the blackboard and brings Todd to the front of the class to give such a YAWP. After several tries, Todd shouts one successfully. Keating then has him produce a poem on the spot by speaking whatever comes to his mind. After a struggle, Todd begins rambling about a madman with sweaty teeth mumbling truth. He produces a poem that stuns the class and makes them applaud. Keating tells him not to forget this.
Next, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy plays over a montage of the boys playing out on the athletic field while Keating coaches them. The boys score goal after goal against one another, growing more and more excited, and lift Keating onto their shoulders at the game’s conclusion, whooping and hollering as the sun sets behind them. Then, we return to the Dead Poets in the old Indian cave, where the boys smoke from pipes, some more successfully than others, and chat playfully. Knox seems forlorn, and when the boys joke with him about Chris, he snaps at them to be quiet. Neil comes in with an odd, man-shaped lamp which he calls the “God of the cave.” Dalton blows a saxophone to start the meeting, and then stands to play. At first, he plays intentionally terribly, reciting lines of poetry in between screeches, but then plays a beautiful song that moves the boys, particularly Knox. When he finishes, Knox cries out that he can’t stand not having Chris for his own. He runs from the cave saying he’s going to call her.
In the next scene, the boys surround Knox at a telephone. Knox hangs it up before letting it ring, saying how bad of an idea it is. He then reconsiders and calls again. Chris answers and invites him to a party on the coming Friday at Chet’s house, which Knox accepts. He hangs up and shouts a great “YAWP!” Charlie points out that the invitation doesn’t mean he’s attending the party with Chris, but Knox doesn’t care because it means she was thinking about him. He claims she’s going to be his.
Out in one of the Welton courtyards, Keating has the boys march in a line. Those watching begin clapping in synch. Mr. McAllister looks on from a window above. Keating explains that each of them need to march to their own beat, not walk (or clap) with conformity. He quotes Robert Frost’s “Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood.” He then has all the boys walk in their own way. Charlie chooses not to walk at all.
Later, at night, Neil finds Todd out on a bridge between buildings, sitting in the dark with a new desk set beside him. Todd explains that his parents sent it for his birthday, but that it’s the same one they got him last year, demonstrating how little thought they put into it. Neil tries to make him feel better by observing how “aerodynamic” it is. He hands it to Todd, who throws it gleefully off the bridge, where it crashes to the ground. Neil says not to worry, because he’ll get another one next year.
Back in the Indian cave, the boys are invoking the opening Thoreau quote when Charlie comes in with two teenage girls, stunning them all. Charlie announces that he wants to be called “Nuwanda” from now on. He uses one of the girl’s lipsticks to draw war paint symbols on his cheeks. Simultaneously, Knox arrives at Chet’s party and is greeted by Chris. People are making out and drinking heavily. Knox appears uncomfortable, watching Chris and Chet dance from afar, but drinks when two of Chet’s friends mistake him for someone else and coerce him. Back in the cave, the girls want the meeting to begin so they can know whether or not to “join.” Charlie quotes Shakespeare to them. At the party, the room spins as Knox appears intoxicated. He sits on a couch beside a couple making out and notices Chris asleep beside him. Feeling brave, he strokes her hair and kisses her forehead. Chet’s friends see this and bring it to Chet’s attention. Chet attacks Knox and beats him to the ground as Chris tells him to stop. Chet threatens to kill Knox if he ever sees him again. In the cave, the girls pass around some alcohol for the boys to drink. Charlie announces that he published an article in the school paper demanding that girls be admitted to Welton at the Dead Poets Society’s demand. The boys are shocked and angry. Charlie says that they need to be about actions in addition to words, and that he’ll claim to have made it up if asked.
The next shot shows Mr. Nolan leading a group of men into the chapel, newspaper in hand. The entire student body is present. Nolan explains that a “profane” article appeared in that week’s edition of the Welton Honor and asks that anyone with information about who published it come forward. A phone rings out and Charlie stands with it in hand, saying that God is calling for Mr. Nolan, asking that women be admitted to Welton, which makes the students laugh. The next shot shows a door closing on Charlie in Mr. Nolan’s office. Mr. Nolan beats him from behind with a paddle as Charlie counts the strikes aloud. He refuses to admit what or who the Dead Poets Society is. He returns waddling to the dorm, where the boys wait anxiously. They ask what happened, and Charlie explains that he’s to apologize to the entire school and all will be forgiven. They ask if he turned any of them in, and Charlie says only that his name is Nuwanda before closing his bedroom door on them, indicating that he did not.
Analysis
As we get into the middle of the narrative, Keating’s English lessons grow in intricacy and depth, beginning with the soccer-ball-kicking exercise out on the field. This lesson involves not just the mind and heart, but the whole body, a testament to the power of the poetry Keating is teaching. His influence begins to have real results when Neil lands the role of Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, despite his father’s no-nonsense plan for Neil’s future. The rebellion that began with the formation of the Dead Poets Society begins to take on individual form in each of the boys as the story progresses.
The scene in which Keating helps Todd produce an original poem on the spot is arguably one of the most powerful scenes in the film. Todd is established from the film’s opening as a hesitant, quiet student struggling to live up to the legacy of his older bother. His primary hesitation in joining the Dead Poets Society is in not wanting to read in front of others, a symptom of stage fright that also manifests when he’s unable to answer Keating’s question in one of his first classes. His ability to express his passion at Keating’s encouragement and write an emotional poem on the spot speaks not only to Todd's underlying talents, but also to Keating’s ability to bring out the creative potential in his students that they can’t even see for themselves, and marks a turning point in Todd’s character that builds to his climactic “O Captain, my captain” gesture at the film’s end.
The scenes in this section also boasts the happiest tone of the film. At the start, Dead Poets Society is somewhat mature and serious, showcasing the strict, no-funny-business nature of Welton. As the boys grow more inspired by Keating and rebellious as a result of his influence, however, they begin to display more joy. This is exemplified in the scene when Meeks and Pitts dance on the roof to their radio while other boys engage in various extracurricular activities like fencing and rowing. Neil’s ecstasy at having landed the part in the play aids in upholding this happy tone as well.
But the happiness can’t last, of course, and the far-reaching influence of Keating’s lessons begins to take its toll, resulting in unfortunate consequences. Charlie is moved to publish an anonymous article in the school paper demanding that girls be admitted to Welton, a stunt which enrages the entire administration and lands him in hot water. Knox gathers up the courage not only to attend a party at Chris Noel’s request, but also to attempt to touch and kiss her while she sleeps, prompting a violent reaction from Chet. The peak positivity of the movie reaches its conclusion by this point, and for the rest of the film things won't be all passion and exuberance.
Of the students, Charlie is one of the most important characters in the film. He's established from the get-go as a bit of slacker and a rebel, so perhaps it's fitting that he's the fastest to warm up to Mr. Keating's unusual teaching methods. He is the first to begin tearing out his textbook introduction when Keating asks them to; he's by far the loudest reader during the soccer ball exercise; and he's the only student to choose immobility as a means of non-conformity during Keating's walking lesson in the courtyard. While Charlie perhaps didn't need as much of a push to begin thinking and acting for himself, the ways in which Keating help him to be bolder come across through his self-proclaimed nickname Nuwanda, an alter-ego that appears to embolden him, as well as through the red lightning bolt he paints on his chest before Neil's play, which he calls a symbol of virility. That he is the only student expelled from Welton during the investigation into Neil's suicide speaks to the particularly high passion that Keating instilled in him—passion that led him to punch Cameron, and ironically, though we never learn what becomes of him, a passion that ultimately freed him from Welton's strong conservativeness and intolerance for defiance.
