Psycho-Social Concepts in the Dead Term Paper

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Wallace x) Three psycho-sociological concepts which are well represented in the film are conformity of group behavior, gender roles in adolescents, especially boys and narrow tradition based attitudes about what is valuable in society.

The whole film is based upon conformity of behavior according to accepted traditions and accepted societal standards of the 1950s in America. Acting was not an accepted vocation, as accepted vocations were those which carried prestige and high salaries. Society's judgment of the value of a job was its monetary worth. The school and its teachers are bound by the traditional mode of teaching, which is largely stale drill and practice with attendant exams. The value is based upon the idea of education being based upon how much information a student can store and regurgitate. It is especially well illustrated by the scene with Keating where he has the students tear out the introduction in their poetry books, because it is clinical and treats poetry like something we can measure and grade. Traditional methods teach the theory of poetry and do not encourage the students to own it and love it.

Even the boys who decide not to conform to themselves, but this is a reasoned decision by them and not imposed, so it is more individual.

The gender roles of Americans were well defined in the 1950s, and the film illustrates them well. The girls whom Knox wants is pretty much the " possession" of a big sports jock, just because he scares away anyone else. Knox gets beaten up by him for paying attention to her. This does not stop him from pursuing her, eventually freeing her to choose.

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Mrs. Perry is the typical quiet wife of the time, unable to speak up for her son when he tries to confront his father about his rights to choose his own future.

All through the film we are bombarded with ideas about what is valuable, which equate to position, prestige and money. Mr. Perry cannot accept a future for his son in which he sees no value. He does love his son, but cannot see him as a person, but only as "his" son. One fellow teacher tells Keating that teaching the boys to love art and poetry is wrong, because they do not have the talent to make a career of it. In other words, only those things which directly contribute to one's career are valuable and education for its own sake is worthless.

In essence, the characters of this film are trapped by tradition, gender roles and "accepted" attitudes of values. However, we see the characters growing up before our eyes, especially the boys, "It is not that men drop out or cease to function, but that many men acting coperatively lose their separateness when viewed objectively and merge their personalities into events. When the child advances to the stage of development that he can see history in this way, the trees are giving way to the forest, metaphorically speaking.

Bernard 386).....

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