Farewell, Mr. Bunting

I have not heard of it.

Zooey wrote:

bnw wrote:

I have not heard of it.

Dead Poets Society. A film with Robin Williams. 90% of the humor in this depends upon having seen that film.

OK thanks I did see DPS.

Yeah, I liked it. I will admit it is a bit self-indulgent, melodramatic, and slightly trite, but I give it a B, or B+.

I have them read a short story by Updike, “A&P,” and make them consider in an essay whether Americans love non-conformists as much as they think they do, and have them draw on both of those sources, plus others that they read throughout the term.

I made the essay up about 15 years ago, and the department still uses it for all 11th graders. It came out of my musings way back then about how even non-conformity is commodified in this culture. Punks go to the mall to buy punk clothes and hair dye. And with all the anti-heroes in our culture that we lionize, I started to wonder about what happens to people who actually march to the beat of a different drummer. So they read Huck Finn, and Catcher in the Rye, and watch Cool Hand Luke, and then they write about it.

I actually think most of those characters took stands for basically selfish reasons with the exception of Huckleberry Finn, who makes his decision believing that his choice will literally condemn him to hell. I think Charlie Dalton in DPS, and Sammy in “A&P,” made their stands more to impress other people than out of principle, and Holden Caulfield and Luke were non-conformists because they COULDN’T conform, not out of much principle.

I will have to show my class this clip tomorrow.