Fighting for Life

Fighting for Life

Poetry is given life by the poet and meaning by the poet. The poet often uses poetry as an escape from reality or a way of purging of his or her emotions. However, once a poem is written, it belongs to the world and can be a very influential and emotional part of a reader’s life. Poetry is a way for the author and the reader to get in touch with his or her emotions, as well as his or her thoughts. This rings true in the case of Dylan Thomas, whose poem “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night,” really allows him to show his speaker’s inability to cope with his emotions at the declining health of his aging father. The speaker struggles with his love for his father, his hopelessness in the situation and the idea of death as a whole. Thomas uses a variety of literary devices throughout the poem to give the reader richer insight and understanding. In the poem, Thomas uses a set rhyme scheme but he also relies on metaphors, repetition, and parallelism to portray the speaker’s emotions. Above all, “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” is highly reliant on the speaker’s tone, which goes from being powerful at the beginning, to more feeble as the poem progresses and as the speaker slowly becomes more and more disdainful of the situation. Thomas’s theme of love and loss along with his use of literary devices such as metaphors, repetition and speaker’s tone are all crucial in helping a reader gain a closer understanding of the speaker’s situation and emotional state of mind.

Dylan Thomas’ speaker is struggling with the reality of death and is unable to face the fact that his father is dying. The speaker urges his father to “rage, rage against the dying of the light,” (l 3) encouraging him to take action and fight for his life. The author displays the speaker’s sense of urgency and desperation through a constant repetition of this line, who is hoping that the rage would bring life to his father. Rage, according to the speaker, is essential to fighting the night and darkness, which Thomas uses throughout the poem as metaphors for death. The father cannot simply allow the light to die, he has to stand up to save it, or he will forever be covered with darkness. The speaker then tries to make a stronger argument and gives examples of how “good men,” (l 7) “wild men,” (l 10) and “grave men” (l 13) who “at their end know dark is right” (l 4) and that death is near, “do not go gentle into that good night” (l 1) because they are strong and wise, just as the father should be. The speaker is beginning to appear desperate, one who will use any method to convince his father that life is not worth giving up without a fight; if his father has any strength left, he would use every ounce of it to fight for his life.

Thomas depicts emotion through the speaker of his poem, but also uses other literary devices throughout the poem. Thomas is “a poet who uses pattern and metaphor in order to create a complex craftsmanship in order to show” (Daiches 350) the various meanings and layers of poetry. Beginning with the title, which exclaims, “Do not go gentle into that good night,” it is clearly a metaphor for death. The night is synonymous with the sunset, which is in literature a metaphor for the end of a day or life. By using night to represent death, Thomas is able to counter that with his use of light as a representation of life. Thomas’ speaker uses this metaphor to tell his father that, “old age should burn and rave at close of day,” (l 2) implying that a person, at his end, should ‘burn’ with life instead of just fizzling out of existence. Light and dark is a constant metaphor throughout the poem, which Thomas continues with the paradox of a “blinding sight” (l 13) which still allows “blind eyes” (l 14) to see at the end of their life. The speaker believes that “blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay” (l 14) because they can be luminous, even when the light in their eyes is dimming. The metaphors are a clever device by Thomas to allow his speaker to talk about death indirectly, because it is clearly something that he has difficulty discussing and confronting.

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 definitive message that the speaker is trying to get across to his father whereas the author uses them as the underlying theme of the entire poem. The repetition also helps change the tone of the speaker’s voice as the poem progresses. At the beginning of the poem, the speaker has a powerful voice and is demanding his father to fight against the night. However, as the speaker continually repeats these lines, his tone changes and it begins to appear as though he is pleading to his father. The tone changes from being one of authority to one of desperation, as the speaker repeatedly begs his father to fight for his life, because he does not want his father to die. Not only does the repetition change the tone, but it also pulls at the emotions of the reader, as the reader can clearly see that the speaker is struggling with his own feelings. Thomas “has a tendency …to see things from different, unusual perspectives” (Greenway 275) which allows the reader to “identify with the speaker in a specific poem” (Greenway 275). The repetition continues, as the word ‘men’ is repeated throughout the poem, in the hopes it would inspire the father to stand up and fight. The speaker gives his father examples of different men from those who are good, to those who are wild, because to the speaker, escaping death or facing it vigilantly, is a sign of manliness. Therefore, through repetition of the word man, the speaker hopes to inspire his father to act like a man; one who is not weak, even when facing death.

Dylan Thomas is effectively able to show the love of a man

for his father. Although the relationship between the father and son is not clearly defined, it is evident that the son truly cares for his father and fears losing him. The speaker is articulate and emotional in his request for his father to “not go gentle into that good night” (l 1). 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 sympathize with the speaker, especially as his tone becomes more distressed through the progression of the poem. Dylan Thomas’ diction, along with his use of metaphors and repetition, allow him to show strong emotion and anguish in his poem “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night.” The reader goes along on the journey of emotions, can feel the struggle of the speaker and truly hopes that the father will display the rage, which the speaker so longs for.

Works Cited 

Daices, David. “The Poetry of Dylan Thomas.” The English Journal 43.7. (1954): 349-356. Print.

Greenway, William. “Dylan Thomas and ‘The Flesh's Vision’.” College Literature 16.3. (1989): 274-280. Print.

Thomas, Dylan. “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night.” Poets: Dylan Thomas.  Poets.org.1997. Web.