Post by larien on Dec 4, 2005 20:00:02 GMT -5
Summary -- Todd reflects on Neil’s suicide and the fact that Mr. Keating has been “let go.E Rated K+ for death.
Disclaimer Dead Poets Society doesn’t belong to me. That doesn’t mean I don’t dream about it . . .
A/N - I realize that I ought to be working "Outcast," rather than righting random fics like this . . . but we watched Dead Poets Society in English, and I just had to write this. I promise to update soon though . . .
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They don’t listen. Dr. Hager thinks that everything will be over if we blame Keating, but I know better. It was Mr. Perry who killed him; Mr. Perry who refused to admit that his son wasn’t everything he wanted; Mr. Perry who pushed Neil until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He trapped Neil, forced him to resort to lies and secrecy so that he could act in the play. If he hadn’t, if he had had the courage to admit that perhaps he and his son had different ideas of what success was, then Neil would still be alive. He would be there on the bed, gloating about his success as Puck. Knox might come in to talk about Chris; Pitts and Meeks invite him to hear their radio. Nuwanda would stop by to laugh about the look on Hager’s face when he said God was calling. Together, we might tell them about the world’s first unmanned flying desk set Ehow the papers and pens fluttered down into the courtyard below us like so many snowflakes.
Instead, Neil is dead. Dead, and Keating condemned by his father for showing him what they were too afraid to see; that it doesn’t hurt to break away from the world’s expectations. That we don’t have to be what people others tell us to be; that there are other worlds than our parentsE
It’s all his fault. He never gave Neil the chance to explain about the play, to tell him how much he loved acting. To say that he didn’t want to become a doctor, that he wanted to choose his own life. He made Neil feel guilty, forced him into the role of the dutiful son. Badgered him, cornered him, until there was only one way out and that was the one that hurts the most.
And if Neil hadn’t shot himself? If he had gone along with his father’s demands and quit the play? He would still be dead. Acting was the only way he could live, the only way that he could truly be himself. To send him away to become a doctor was to kill him, just as surely as he died by that bullet. To kill someone, to break their spirit and leave them a shell of their former self is to murder them. Had he not pulled that trigger, Neil Perry would still have been a dead man. To see him become what his father wanted, to see the fire in his eyes doused and killed would have hurt even more than the aching emptiness that he has left behind.
Disclaimer Dead Poets Society doesn’t belong to me. That doesn’t mean I don’t dream about it . . .
A/N - I realize that I ought to be working "Outcast," rather than righting random fics like this . . . but we watched Dead Poets Society in English, and I just had to write this. I promise to update soon though . . .
____
They don’t listen. Dr. Hager thinks that everything will be over if we blame Keating, but I know better. It was Mr. Perry who killed him; Mr. Perry who refused to admit that his son wasn’t everything he wanted; Mr. Perry who pushed Neil until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He trapped Neil, forced him to resort to lies and secrecy so that he could act in the play. If he hadn’t, if he had had the courage to admit that perhaps he and his son had different ideas of what success was, then Neil would still be alive. He would be there on the bed, gloating about his success as Puck. Knox might come in to talk about Chris; Pitts and Meeks invite him to hear their radio. Nuwanda would stop by to laugh about the look on Hager’s face when he said God was calling. Together, we might tell them about the world’s first unmanned flying desk set Ehow the papers and pens fluttered down into the courtyard below us like so many snowflakes.
Instead, Neil is dead. Dead, and Keating condemned by his father for showing him what they were too afraid to see; that it doesn’t hurt to break away from the world’s expectations. That we don’t have to be what people others tell us to be; that there are other worlds than our parentsE
It’s all his fault. He never gave Neil the chance to explain about the play, to tell him how much he loved acting. To say that he didn’t want to become a doctor, that he wanted to choose his own life. He made Neil feel guilty, forced him into the role of the dutiful son. Badgered him, cornered him, until there was only one way out and that was the one that hurts the most.
And if Neil hadn’t shot himself? If he had gone along with his father’s demands and quit the play? He would still be dead. Acting was the only way he could live, the only way that he could truly be himself. To send him away to become a doctor was to kill him, just as surely as he died by that bullet. To kill someone, to break their spirit and leave them a shell of their former self is to murder them. Had he not pulled that trigger, Neil Perry would still have been a dead man. To see him become what his father wanted, to see the fire in his eyes doused and killed would have hurt even more than the aching emptiness that he has left behind.
