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Lesson 4
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ASSIGNMENT 4a
CHERRYL’S LEAD CHARACTERS:
What I learned while doing this assignment:
The more I write about these characters – even before tackling the script – the more complex they become. Characters can fit more than one role (both change agent and betraying character, for example). And it feeds my creativity to consider more possibilities for them than I originally intended or thought possible.
IDEA 1
Tell us your transformational journey logline.
As an upstanding well-known family in a small southern town gets to know their deceased patriarch’s mistress, they learn to respect how he authentically loved two women and live as an extended family.
Tell us who you think might be your Change Agent and give a few sentences about how that character fits the role. Also, include: Their vision, Their past experience that fits that vision.
There are two possible change agents in this story: The oldest persona and the youngest person. The oldest, the matriarch, has not exactly been in the dark about her late husband’s mistress. She knows enough to nurture her daughters away from hatred and bitterness. The youngest person in the play is the patriarch’s daughter with the other woman. She doesn’t know enough to be tainted, loves everybody and gets along well with the matriarch.
Tell us who you think might be your Transformable Character(s) and give a few sentences about how that character or characters fit the role.
Transformable characters: The Stout sisters, the mistress. The eldest sister has a profession that requires her to help others transform, but she can’t seem to transform herself. Others don’t know that her late father also shared some of his secrets with her – but not the secret about the mistress. The mistress also realizes she’s bitter and angry with her dead lover. She feels cheated out of the life she believes he gave to his other family, and she takes pleasure in antagonizing the other women.
Tell us who or what you think might be The Oppression and give a few sentences about how The Oppression works in your story.
The oppression is the mistress for the Stout women. For the mistress, the oppression is self-worth and perceived power. For them all, a shared oppression is the reality of not knowing the whole truth.
Tell us who you think might be your Betraying Character and give a few sentences about how that character fits the role.
Ironically, the matriarch is both the change agent and the betraying character. She breaks the family stronghold buy nurturing a bond with her late husband’s child with his mistress. The eldest Stout daughter is also a betraying character. She knows a lot more about her father than she’s telling.
IDEA 2
Tell us your transformational journey logline.
When a couple enters a magical escape room filled with the biggest pains from their pasts, they learn to be vulnerable with each other and love more openly and authentically.
Tell us who you think might be your Change Agent and give a few sentences about how that character fits the role. Also, include: Their vision, Their past experience that fits that vision.
The change agent is the room itself. There are ways in which they also get to be change agents for each other. The room’s purpose/vision is to have people walk in truth and live authentically.
Tell us who you think might be your Transformable Character(s) and give a few sentences about how that character or characters fit the role.
Transformable characters are the individuals who enter the magical escape room.
Tell us who or what you think might be The Oppression and give a few sentences about how The Oppression works in your story.
The oppression fear … of authentically being with someone or of being utterly and eternally alone.
Tell us who you think might be your Betraying Character and give a few sentences about how that character fits the role.
Betraying characters: value systems, parents and upbringing, societal norms, old lovers, friends’ opinions, their own interpretation of themselves.
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Madeleine’s Lead Characters
What I learned doing this assignment:
- Tell us your transformational journey logline.
A self-sufficient woman’s life is upended when her uncle is murdered by a person unknown, and she must accept help from a childhood foe.
- Tell us who you think might be your Change Agent and give a few sentences about how that character fits the role. Also, include: – Their vision: – Their past experience that fits that vision:
The CHANGE AGENT is the story’s antagonist, the villain who shoots and kills the protagonist’s uncle. Owen Curtis is a proud man who acts out of fear of losing his hard one reputation as a prominent and wealthy citizen. He kills the protagonist’s uncle to keep his previous killings from coming to light. Then when Anna-Maude becomes a threat, he goes after her, too.
- Tell us who you think might be your Transformable Character(s) and give a few sentences about how that character or characters fit the role.
The TRANSFORMABLE CHARACTER is my protagonist. Anna-Maude is a self-sufficient woman who gets by on her own talents and strengths until her uncle is murdered.
- Tell us who or what you think might be The Oppression and give a few sentences about how The Oppression works in your story.
The OPPRESSION is the act of murder and the knowledge that the murderer is unknown and still at large. It gets worse when Anna-Maude comes under personal attack.
- Tell us who you think might be your Betraying Character and give a few sentences about how that character fits the role.
My BETRAYING CHARACTER is Delinda Cross, the murderer’s daughter. She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She has lived the good life and been respectable largely on account of how people view her father.
She cannot accept that her father is a MURDERER or that SHE WILL BE FOREVER KNOWN AS A MURDERER’S DAUGHTER.
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Penny Wingert. Lead character isLayla my superhero dog. Her change agent is a will to transform yer World from a non caring place to a kinder gentler wold were Animals an d people can thrive. The oppression is a negative force that tries to kill her and finally does. Her substitute takes over and wins w everyones heart
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Lesson 4_Nader Khaghani
Lesson 4-ASSIGNMENT 1: As always, thank you Hal&Cheryl.
- Answer the question “What I learned doing this assignment is…?” (place at top of your work).
Oppression: we all fear and fight although essential to change and transformation.
The betraying character remains in the cocoon and hardly changes or is affected by the journey. There is always disbelief, incredulousness, and skepticism. Doubts, misgivings, and lack of conviction.
A Change Agent helps make the change possible against all odds.
Even if you are not completely sure about which characters are which, give us your current GUESS about these four roles.
1. Tell us your transformational journey logline.
Fear of death makes us do crazy things. Tom, a senior citizen, in the grip of fear of death takes action to transform his fear into acceptance of the inevitable.
- Tell us who you think might be your Change Agent and give a few
sentences about how that character fits the role. Also, include: – Their
vision: – Their experience that fits that vision:
A childhood friend of his wife Kathy whom Tom always felt close to, (she gets him) once even kissed her in the kitchen. She is an Archetypal Pattern Analyst (so am I in real life.) and resisted Tom’s advances. But sees Rita’s inability to bridge the transformation of Tom. Rita plays the betraying role.
- Tell us who you think might be your Transformable Character(s) and
give a few sentences about how that character or characters fit the role.
Tom is a transformable character. He is a senior citizen all his life fearing death and now in the fourth quadrant of his life must embark on a profound journey to come to terms with it, and live peacefully.
- Tell us who or what you think might be The Oppression and give a few
sentences about how The Oppression works in your story.
The oppression is the same old fear that we all have: The writing is on the wall and spells: Death.
Eventually, we all die. Shit!
- Tell us who you think might be your Betraying Character and give a
few sentences about how that character fits the role.
The betraying character is the wife.
She resists condemns and disapproves of Tom’s journey to find a solution and reconciliation with the dark side of life.
- Answer the question “What I learned doing this assignment
is…?” (place at top of your work).
Oppression: we all fear and fight.
The betraying character remains in the cocoon and hardly changes or is affected by the journey.
A Change Agent helps make the change possible.
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What I [felt] while doing this assignment:
I had definitely forgotten how inspiring and heartbreakingly beautiful this film is. It hit me in some very vulnerable places because I’m a poet. Happy to sit with it again after a long time away from it.
LESSON 4b
Analysis of Dead Poets Society
1. What is the CHANGE this movie is about? What is the Transformational Journey of this movie?
Individual Freedom.
The students move from mindlessly obeying rigid rules that suffocated them as individuals to being free thinkers taking a stand for what they are passionate about and believe in.
2. Lead characters:
- Who is the Change Agent (the one
causing the change) and what makes this the right character to cause the
change? Mr. Keating is the major Change Agent. His unorthodox teaching
methods and his insistence that his students “seize the day” push their
boundaries and encourage them to know their own voices. Neil Perry is also
a change agent. He resurrects the Dead Poets Society using the stories and
handwritten notes of John Keating as his beacon. Keating is the spark, but
Neil is the fire.- Who is the Transformable
Character (the one who makes the change) and what makes them the right
character to deliver this profound journey? All of Keating’s
students are transformable characters. They are all trying to break free
of something – most notably, Todd Anderson and Neil Perry, who happen to
be roommates.- What is the Oppression? The oppression
is rigid culture that is full of rules, conformity and repression and long-held
tenets of academia (tradition, honor, discipline, excellence)3. How are we lured into the profound journey? What causes us to connect with this story?
Initially, the school’s pomp and circumstance and the traditions that are being celebrated lure us in. There are two boys posing for a photo in front of a painting of prestigious young men. A student preparing to play bagpipes. The occasion looks important. We begin to connect when Keating enters the classroom whistling Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture.” We connect because Keating stands out from the stuffy personalities at this school and nudges his students to take a journey. It’s an invitation to the audience, too: Carpe diem: “Seize the day. Make your lives extraordinary, boys.”
4. Looking at the character(s) who are changed the most, what is the profound journey? From “old ways” to “new way of being.” Identify their old way: Identify their new way at the conclusion:
Neil changes from yielding to the life his father has planned for him to pursuing the passion and the life that he wants. Eventually, his transformation is from life to death. Todd changes from withdrawn to “spoken.” All of the students except Cameron take the leap and follow their own voices and their own minds. They move from conformity to rebellion and ultimately into free thinking.
5. What is the gradient the change? What steps did the Transformational Character go through as they were changing?
OLD WAYS
–Fear of the institution of academia
–Submission to being told what to think and how to act
–Living lives dreamed up by everyone else
NEW WAYS
–Individual pursuits
–Their own voices
–Willing to take a stand
–Because they are underage, a compromise for what their parents demand, but they still have their own minds
6. How is the “old way” challenged? What beliefs are challenged that cause a main character to shift their perspective…and make the change?
The main belief that is being challenged is the idea that there is only one proven path to success and that anything outside the “proven path” is an assurance of failure.
Keating’s unconventional mentorship and teaching forces each student to take an internal journey and assert more of their own choices into their own lives.
7. What are the most profound moments of the movie?
- Keating’s stunning entry into the classroom on day one
- Keating’s request for the students to rip out the introduction from their textbooks
- The battle of words Keating has with McAlister in the dining hall: “We’re not talking artists, Joel. We’re talking free thinkers … Only in their dreams can men be truly free. Was always thus and always will be.”
- The image of the students’ hooded silhouettes running with flashlights into the foggy night. This is definitely the picture of transformation.
- Overstreet riding his bike to see Chris and setting the bird in flight.
- The classroom exercise where Todd Anderson finds his own “barbaric yawp.” He creates an impromptu poem while Keating pushes him and really comes into his own voice.
- The Dead Poets Society meeting moment when Charlie Dalton’s saxophone becomes a poem.
- The tender moment between Todd and Neil when Todd is upset that his parents have given him the same gift for his birthday that they did the previous year.
- Neil seeing his father in the audience and choosing to go on stage anyway
- The image of Neil with the “crown” on his head just before dying by suicide. He looked like a messiah.
- Neil’s parents discovering his body.
- Keating discovering the Dead Poets Society manual in Neil’s desk.
- The students standing on their desks and saying, “O Captain, My Captain” as Keating gathers his personal belongings and leaves. And the flash of the whole classroom that shows who remains seated (the conformists). That image of the students taking a stand mirrors the painting that serves as the backdrop for the brothers posing for a photo at the beginning of the film for me.
8. What are the most profound lines of the movie?
- “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.”
- “No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.”
- “Medicine, law, engineering – these are noble pursuits, necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love. These are what we stay alive for.”
- “That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”
- “The Dead Poets were committed to sucking the marrow out of life.”
- “We didn’t just read poetry. We let it drip from our tongues like honey.”
- “Are you a man or an ameba?”
- “Just don’t let your poems be ordinary.”
- Keating to Neil: “Then you’re acting for him, too. You’re playing the part of the dutiful son.”
- “I was really good.” (Neil)
- “Oh Captain, My Captain.”
9. How does the ending payoff the setups of this movie?
By the end of this story, most of Keating’s students have gained the courage to think for themselves and sound their own voices. The school punished them for such a show of freedom, but the school and its conformists cannot stop the free thinking. Keating acknowledges that he knows this when he continues to say “Thank you” to his students.
10. What is the Profound Truth of this movie?
The pursuit of dreams, free thinking and the power of your own voice, are the only things that truly keep you free.
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- Madeleine’ analysis of DEAD POET SOCIETY:
- What is the change this movie is about? What is the Transformational Journey of this movie?
This movie is about resisting conformity and thinking for ourselves. The transformational journey is the movement of Keating’s students from doing and thinking what they are told to do and think to being freed to do and think what they want to do with their lives.
The journey takes the boys from staying and safe to being risk-takers.
- Lead characters:
- Who is the Change Agent (the one causing the change) and what makes this the right character to cause the change?
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Keating is the Change Agent. He’s the right choice because he’s the boy’s teacher and because he’s gone before them in this in becoming a free thinker.
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- Who is the Transformable Character (the one who makes the change) and what makes them the right character to deliver this profound journey?
All the boys, except Cameron, are transformed, but Todd is changed the most. He goes from being voiceless to being a poet and a leader.
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- What is the Oppression?
The Oppression is Welton Academy and its four pillars:
Tradition! Honor! Discipline! Excellence!
The Oppression is also the boys’ parents who want to control what they do and what they think for one selfish reason or another.
- How are we lured into the profound journey? What causes us to connect with this story?
We are lured into the profound journey by the boys who will resurrect the DEAD POETS SOCIETY.
We connect with this society first through their relationships with their parents. At least one of these relationships will strike a chord with the viewers.
- Looking at the character(s) who are changed the most, what is the profound journey? From “old ways” to “new way of being.” Identify their old way: Identify their new way at the conclusion:
Todd goes from being unable to speak above a whisper to speaking aloud a poem that astonishes everyone. He has found his voice. In the end, he is the only one who doesn’t sign Nolan’s paper accusing Keating.
- What is the gradient the change? What steps did the Transformational Character go through as they were changing?
Keating has three of the boys walk around the soccer field. At first they are walking to the beat of their own rhythm. But after a quick while, they are walking in unison. They are conforming.
First they wake up. Second they explore. Third they find their own voices.
Neil auditions for a play and gets the part. He LOVES acting. His father finds out. In the middle of the play he snatches him away and drags him home, telling him he will now be going to military school. Neil defies his father one last time, committing suicide with his fathers gun. He goes from death to life to death before he graduates.
Charlie invites two townie girls to the cave with the hope of getting laid. Instead he learns the difference between sex and romance.
Charlie writes an article in the school newspaper that calls for girls at Welton Academy. He gets beaten for his trouble and threatened with the dismissal of his friends involved in the Dead Poets Society if he doesn’t name them and then make a public confession.
Knox goes to an unchaperoned party at the home of one of his father’s friends to get closer to Chris. A BEAUTIFUL GIRL. He’s brazen enough to touch Chris in erotic ways while she’s making out with her boyfriend then gets beaten up by the boyfriend. Knox invites Chris to the DEAD POETS SOCIETY and wins the girl.
Todd, who couldn’t speak above a whisper in the beginning finds his voice in poetry stands up in defiance at the end of the movie, leading the other boys, except Cameron, to stand on their desks in silent salute to Mr. Keating.
- How is the “old way” challenged? What beliefs are challenged that cause a main character to shift their perspective…and make the change?
The old way is challenged when Keating tells the boys, “Seize the Day!” And they decide to do it.
- What are the most profound moments of the movie?
When Todd refuses to sign the complaint against Mr. Keating, despite pressure from the school and his parents.
- What are the most profound lines of the movie?
For me, these are the most profound lines of the movie:
“Ah, but the difficulty of ignoring those
creeds and schools, conditioned as
we are by our parents, our
traditions, by the modern age. How
do we, like Whitman, permit our own
true natures to speak? How do we
strip ourselves of prejudices,
habits, influences? The answer, my
dear lads, is that we must
constantly endeavor to find a new
point of view.”
- How does the ending payoff the setups of this movie?
At the beginning of the movie, the boys arrive with their parents and are introduced to the school’s 4 pillars: Tradition! Honor! Discipline! Excellence! This is chanted by all the boys in the school.
At the end of the movie, the members of the Dead Poets Society, except for Cameron, stand on their own on their desk tops in silent salute to Mr. Keating.
- What is the Profound Truth of this movie?
Everyone has a unique voice.
We don’t all have to walk to the beat of the same drummer.
- Who is the Change Agent (the one
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