Love and death, Mr. Keating had once told them, are the two most oft-used themes in history, which is why so many of the poems we cover here are about love and death. "Love" is but a more meaningful way of expressing "sex," – don't laugh, just see how you feel when you've had some, Cameron – which comes from the philosophic theme life, and naturally the opposite of life is death. But in my class, I want you boys to think outside the lines! Anything can be poetry; you don't have to wrack your brains trying to think of something "deep," you can find poetry in a grilled-cheese sandwich if you want to. Go beyond the ordinary. It's inside of you, just waiting for the right tools to let it come out.
After Neil's announcement that he was trying out for the play, Todd was left standing alone in their dorm, spirits momentarily lifted by his friend's daring. Soon, though, like a lone wheel losing momentum but still turning, he fell back into his bleak depression. Todd was not a performer. Todd would never have tried out for the play, not if it meant speaking in front of others. If it weren't for Neil, Todd would never have joined the Dead Poets Society out of the mere idea that he might have to recite. Mr. Keating had hit the bulls-eye when he remarked that Todd was scared to speak publicly. Sometimes the boy thought his mad English teacher purposefully tried to drive him up the wall.
Forlornly, he stared out the window, and tore another sheet out of his notebook. Previous attempts at poetry lay scattered about him – some Neil had read aloud, others he had crumpled so thoroughly that the writing was illegible. He picked one poem up gingerly and coughed, looking about nervously to see if anyone was suddenly going to pop into his room and watch him declaim. Todd licked his lips and began.
"The moon was bright, the stars did shine, the chilly wind did b-blow..."
The dorm was filled with the sounds of ripping paper. Todd's groan echoed down the hallway, and he pulled out his Trig binder instead – perhaps the cold, intellectual homework would stimulate his mind more than poetry.
---Shame burned onto his face like a tattoo. Mr. Keating didn't seem to be surprised by his admission of failure; instead he turned to away and announced rather grandly, "Mr. Anderson thinks that everything inside of him is worthless and embarrassing." The look in his teacher's eyes made Todd feel more than embarrassed; more like guilty and self-hating at the same time. He couldn't do anything other than blink and search uselessly for an explanation, while focusing on his desk or Mr. Keating's leather shoes. As Keating explained to him what was really inside of him, his classmates remained silent: a fate worse than mockery. Todd looked up and realized that he was going to be made an example of. Chalk creaked on chalkboard as Keating read aloud what he was writing: "I sound my barbaric YAWP over the rooftops of the world." Unsurprisingly, written by Walt Whitman. Todd thought he had never heard anything more stupid, then hastily amended it by thinking it was striking, poetic, but incomprehensible. It was this that would never make him a genius like Neil or a poet like Mr. Keating – his lack of inspiration, and a feeling of exclusion from the great thinking minds of past years.
Students chuckled at this new development. It was possible that they, too, thought "Uncle Walt's" statement a load of excrement, but they would tolerate Keating's nonsense if it meant entertainment. Todd shuffled his shoes. Mr. Keating was beckoning to him. Reluctance personified, he stood up and shuffled down to center stage. With several "uh"s and hesitations, he YAWP-ed. Mr. Keating was dissatisfied. Mr. Keating wanted him to try again. Mr. Keating was going to make his life ridiculous in front of his classmates to prove a point. Hopelessly, Todd scanned the classroom for a friendly pair of eyes; ("Uh, yawp!") Neil was scribbling the sentence on the blackboard into his notebook. The others were waiting to see what Keating would do next. If only he could make this treatment into a joke, something Charlie would think of, or Knox, but the classroom just giggled at him and Mr. Keating nudged him from embarrassment to sullenness and from sullenness into sudden irritation; out of nowhere, he voiced frustration by snapping a loud "YAWP" in Mr. Keating's face. Beaming, the teacher stepped back, and Todd made for his desk, flushed.
"Now, you don't get away that easy," Keating warned, turning him back towards center stage. "There's a picture of Uncle Walt up there. What does he remind you of? Don't think, answer."
"Uh, a-a madman," he muttered, trying to come up with something to satisfy.
"What kind of madman?"
"Uh, a crazy madman," he answered, regretting it instantly – "Come on, you can do better than that," Keating objected, circling around him like a elegiac vulture ready to pick him to pieces. "Say the first thing that pops into your head, even if it's total gibberish –"
"A-a, a sweaty-toothed madman –" Mr. Keating went into paroxysms of delight. "Good God, boy –" Todd wanted to go home. This was unfamiliar ground, and somewhere along the line he was going to make a fool of himself and be ridiculed.
To his surprise and discomfort, Mr. Keating demanded he close his eyes. Like a faith healer when Todd didn't comply, he covered his student's eyes with a hand, continuing his vulture's circling with a new flushing boy in tow; "now describe what you see," as if there was no barrier at all. Neil's face. Mr. Keating's. Charlie's. The sea of gangly boys ready to sentence him to death like Romans at a gladiator show. In desperation, he pretended that he was alone in the room, his only inspiration shining out like a ray of sunlight from the storm clouds.
"I... I close my eyes," he began – it had been the start of another recycled poem before he'd given up last night. Sounding good; urged to continue, "and this image floats beside me." He was speaking the truth, and it sounded flat coming from him, but Keating's encouragement was helping him... "The sweaty-toothed madman," Keating repeated, and Todd, emboldened, let out, "A sweaty-toothed madman with a stare that pounds my brain." Pounding with the sound of a heartbeat, with the sound of battle drums. "His hands reach out to choke me." Like he was feeling now, choked by the feel of eyes on him, his throat closing up. Yet there was more to say.
Keating's hands released him. And all the time. "And all the time he's mumbling." Mumbling what, Todd? "Mumbling truth..." This was Todd's task, not Whitman's, yet he could not help but include it. "Truth's like a blanket that always leaves your feet cold." Eyes starting open, the laughter of students penetrated his vision, only "Forget them!" Keating's voice roars in his brain, and Todd can't stop now because this is the one time he'll get to say what he has to say; Keating's advice dispensed, the teacher fell back to the desks, becoming one of the students, a spectator, another member of the audience, watching Todd fly. Stammering, feeling as though any moment he could break in half, "Y-y-you c-c-... you push it, stretch it, it'll never be enough. You kick at it, beat it, it'll never cover any of us. From the moment we enter crying to the moment we leave dying, it will cover just your head as you wail and cry and scream!"
This moment was over. Instinctively knowing that it was over, Todd's eyes shot open, taking in gasping mouths and eager ears. Silent. Profound. Mr. Keating's praise shone through his eyes, his posture, his flexing hands; and Neil's face had lost the Puckish look, his glasses were off, and he was staring – at Todd – with wonder.
There had never been a more beautiful moment. Charlie started the applause, and others joined in with whoops of exultation. He basked in the moment, realized his restraint was gone, and he would never look at Neil again with pleading to be accepted, because they were joined now in delight, he knew how it was to have the audience cry your name in victory. He could've cried. Instead he let himself half-grin, let himself bask; and when his professor briefly clasped his head and murmured "Don't you forget this," Todd knew he never would.