Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Essay

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Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night is a powerful poem and the words of a desperate son pleading to his dying father to hang on to life and fight against his quickly approaching death. the poem was written by Dylan Thomas in 1951 just two years before his untimely death at the young age of 39. He is the speaker in the poem and the subject of his poem is his father who at the time was going blind and was on his deathbed. the poem is written in villanelle form and has a iambic pentameter rhyme scheme. Dylan Thomas conveys his pleading and dramatic tone and theme of fighting against death through his use of diction and symbolism. Dylan Thomas's use of symbolism conveys his theme of fighting for life. The “dying of the light” symbolizes life fading away and into death. He tells the reader that death is not something that should be embraced or accepted-people should “rage” against death and fight for their survival. “That good night” symbolizes the death that comes for…show more content…
He describes four different types of men as “good”, “wise”, “wild”, and “grave”; the way each type of man deals with death correlates with what Thomas calls them and how he feels about how these types of men deal with death. He describes “good” men as the men who fight against death so that they may live to have greater accomplishments. To him “wise” men are men who accept the fact that they will die but fight the inevitable because they feel they haven't yet left a great enough mark on the world. Men who are “wild” are described as men who lived life to the fullest only to realize too late their own mortality and fight against it. The men who are described as “grave” accept that they are going to die and see the world clearer and more beautiful than ever before. He uses a variety of words to describe the men to show that every type of person will, like these men, try to fight against their inevitable

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