English 12
Mr. Terrill
Dead Poets Society and Looking for Alaska
1. How is “The Great Perhaps” present in Dead Poets Society? How does it relate to
the notion of “Carpe Diem” or Thoreau’s quote about how he wants to “suck the
marrow out of life”? Include any connections you can think of between Looking for
Alaska and Dead Poets Society – friendships, romance, risk-taking, pranks,
adolescence, etc.
2. Why does Mr. Keating share with his class the following quote by Walt Whitman:
“I sound my barbaric YAWP over the rooftops of the world”. What is a barbaric
yawp? What is the point of this quote? What will you take away from it? Here is a
brief excerpt from Whitman’s long poem “Song of Myself”:
“The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains
of my gab and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”
How does the excerpt relate to The Great Perhaps or The Nature of Being a
3. Mr. Keating quotes the following poem after his lesson about the dangers of
conformity by strolling in the courtyard. Keating warns his students to not blindly
follow what they are told in life, but rather strike out on their own and find their
own way. Read the following poem by Robert Frost, and then discuss how it relates
to two of our essential topics from Looking for Alaska: The Great Perhaps and The
Nature of Being a Person:
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
Person?
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Robert Frost
4. Dead Poets Society is set almost fifty years before Looking for Alaska. How are
they different in terms of what they say about life as a teenager? What does this say
about life in general? How has being a teenager stayed the same in fifty years? How
has it changed?
5. How is “the labyrinth” present in Dead Poets Society? Which characters
experience labyrinths of suffering? How are their labyrinths different? How does
Neil, Todd, and Knox all experience labyrinths of suffering? How do they escape
their labyrinths using the Great Perhaps/Carpe Diem? Is it worth it for them to
escape?
6. What is your reaction to Neil’s suicide? How does your reaction relate to Miles’
letter at the end of Looking for Alaska? Would you have told Neil something similar
to what Miles wished he could have told Alaska – that she needn’t have done what
she did because they are as invincible as they think they are?
7. In the end, what do you take away from this book and this movie? What have
they taught you about life, specifically as a teenager? What will you remember
about them? Have they motivated you to examine your own life? Will you change
the way you approach life at all? Why or why not?