(Dylan Thomas reads his poem “Do Not Go
Gentle into that Good Night”)
Poetry can be highly influential
and often directly impacts a reader. However, poetry can often be an escape and
purging of emotions for the author as well. Therefore, poetry is a way for the
author and the reader to both get in touch with their emotions as well as their
thoughts. This rings true in the case of Dylan Thomas, whose poem “Do Not Go
Gentle into that Good Night” really allows him to cope with his emotions at the
declining health of his aging father. Thomas struggles with the concepts of
death, loss and his love for his father. Thomas’s poem has a set rhyme scheme,
but in addition to that, he also relies on metaphors, repetition, and parallelism
to express his emotions to the reader. Above all, “Do Not Go Gentle into that
Good Night” is highly reliant on the speaker and the speaker’s tone, which is
struggling to find the best way to prevent the loss of a loved one. Thomas’s
use of literary devices, voice of his speaker as well as the theme are crucial
in helping the reader understand the devastation and hopelessness that the
speaker feels at the potential death of his father.
Dylan Thomas is having difficulty
with the idea of his father possibly passing away and he wants his father to
fight for his life. He expresses this through a repetition of “Rage, rage
against the dying of the light” (l 3). He doesn’t just want his father to
survive a bit longer, but actually wants his father to take action, have rage
and fight for his life to live so no one can take it away from him. Thomas
tries to give examples of how “good men,” (l 7) “wild men,” (l 10) and “grave
men” (l 13) “at their end know dark is right” (l 4) and that death is near,
they “do not go gentle into that good night” (l 1). The speaker is using
different techniques to get his father to fight against the night. He tries to
fill him with rage, then he tries to reason with him by giving him an example
of other men and ultimately he prays and pleads with his father to fight for
his life.
Other than the speaker, Thomas also
uses other devices to help the poem flow as well as get his message and story
across to the reader. The title itself is exclaiming “Do not go gentle into
that good night” which is clearly a metaphor for death. By using night to
represent death, Thomas is able to use light as a representation of something
which is worth fighting for and night is dark whereas the sun is good and
bright. The night represents the sunset which brings life to an end while
sunrise if what gives life and meaning. Thomas continues this metaphor with a
paradox which is the idea of a “blinding sight” (l 13) which still allows “blind
eyes” (l 14) to see at the end of their life.
Repetition is a crucial part of the
poem with Thomas emphasizing select line such as “Do Not Go Gentle into that
Good Night” and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” These two lines
are repeated four times each, making up almost one half of the poem. They are
the message that the speaker is trying to get across. He may sway away and try
to bring in other ideas and examples but in the end, these two ideas are what
he wants to get across. The repetition adds to voice of the speaker who seems
to go from having a powerful voice to pleading for the life of his father. The
word ‘men’ is repeated throughout the poem, in the hopes it would inspire the
father to stand up and fight.
Although there is no resolution to
the poem, the author is able to exude the feeling of the speaker through
different literary devices. It is easy to relate to the speaker as his tone and
voice changes throughout the poem. Dylan Thomas is able to show strong emotion
and anguish in his poem “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night.”
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