Dead Poet\'s Society: Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard)

Comments for death : Dead Poet\'s Society: Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard).

In this case, Carpe Diem is not exactly the best advice, something Mr. Keating truly seems to regret for the rest of the film. Is it really his fault in your opinion, or would Neal have done this anyway? Either way I'm glad we're getting over our slow week of updating.

And as you said in the last line of the writeup, wouldn't "Offscreen" apply?

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Bruno! Yes, yes, Lovely to hear from you too! No, no, ze vitness? Do not worry! I haff taken care of ze vitness. Yes, yes. Shoot him? What, ar-are you stupid? No, no I am not going to blow ze plane up! I... haff put snakes... on ze plane.

It was the fucking dad's fault, obviously. He squashed the last bit of hope the boy had, and it killed him.

You do have a point, Neil's suicide was MAINLY due to his father's overly controlling attitude toward him. However, if I were in Neil's place, I would not have killed myself. I understand that he felt trapped, and that children didn't talk back to their parents in the 1950s, but he was still a senior in high school, and he was a straight-A student. Didn't it ever occur to Neil, "Oh, you know it sucks that I have to go to military school for a year, but once I am in college, I don't really have to listen to my dad anymore, who gives a shit what he says, I don't have to be a doctor.I can be an actor still, he can't stop me once I'm an adult."
Neil also could have talked to his mother (who seemed pretty normal), and asked her to talk to his dad for him.
Nonetheless, I think that Neil committing suicide was a WEAK move! Yes, I felt bad for the kid, and he was also my favorite character in the movie, but I think he had a lot of more reasonable options than suicide.

Although I agree that Mr. Keating was faulty in his explanation of "carpe diem", I believe Neil's suicide was inevitable. It was his last "act" some may say. When he last speaks with his father and says that he feels "nothing", he means that he has nothing to say nor anything to live for. He almost smirks when he says it. He has discovered that he is truly trapped. His one act of passion on stage was still not good enough. was Neil's reasoning flawed? Yes, of course, but due to a domineering father, all he knew was the confines of a prep school and home full of verbal abuse. He found his way out. "Join hands if we may be friends." His last reach to a father that would never understand his son. Even though his father blames Keating for Neil's death, the viewer can rest assured that Mr. Perry will forever be punished, suffering eternally knowing that it was he that indirectly killed his own son.