Something I noticed rewatching DPS that I feel like I’ve never really seen talked about before: when the Poets wake up Todd to let him know that Neil is dead, Cameron isn’t with them. He isn’t in that scene at all. Sure, maybe Charlie told him and he grieved privately in their room, but I honestly think he was an oversight and wasn’t alerted until later on.
I think this is one of the strongest explanations as to why he rats on Keating and goes so easily with authority: this is the final straw to make him feel like an outsider. As much as people like to say that Cameron is a rule follower through and through, I don’t think that’s the case. After all, he was the second person to officially join the Dead Poets Society behind Charlie.
I think Cameron has always looked for acceptance and structure, hence why he tends to be a teacher’s pet. If he can’t make friends, then he can at least find his value in being a good student. But then Neil and Keating spark something in him, a want to be accepted not for just the rules he follows but for who he is. So he hesitantly breaks the rules he found comfort in, finds community with his friends, relaxes enough to joke with them and chant and rough house.
Of course there are the small comments Charlie in particular makes to alienate him, but he’s finally doing it, he’s finally becoming a part of the friend group and valued for who he is, even if it required Charlie becoming his roommate and breaking some rules to get it.
He bristles slightly when this guy, Todd, who so clearly doesn’t want to be involved gets accepted into the group with open arms. Cameron had to fight his way in tooth and nail, provide help for homework and force jokes where he saw the others would naturally, yet here comes this silent kid who begrudges everyone yet still has the same standing as him. But he brushes it off since they’re all friends.
What serves as his breaking point is waking up the day after the play to sullen friends and tear stained faces to realize that Neil is dead, and not only that, but everyone has been told before him and have already processed it somewhat while he’s still reeling. And the worst of it all is that they even told Todd before they thought to ever wake him up, the kid who, in his eyes, had just met the guy.
Neil was arguably the Poet Cameron was closest too, and with the betrayal of his delayed announcement on behalf of the others, he trusts no one now. Not only that, but he is scorned. Why do they get a say in who gets to know first? Why does the new kid get grounds to mourn more than him?
So he turns back to the constant which has never failed him other than making him albeit a bit hollow: authority. And in his young and betrayed mind, it becomes believable that this really was all Keating’s fault, that this weird and different authority figure who made them rip up textbooks had some kind of part in disrupting the normal he had gotten used to. And this way, he really believes he’s getting justice for Neil while also saving all of the Poets from being expelled because despite the betrayal of being left behind, he still cares about them.
