Analysis of Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Essay

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

An inspiring poem written by Dylan Thomas showing a Villanelle form of six stanzas, given a situation where the father is dying and the son wants him to fight death and not give into it.

The poem then starts in the first stanza with the speaker urging the father to 'not go gentle into that good night', and the phrase good night is as we all know said to some one who is going to sleep, and in fact, in Christian context, death is considered to be a long rest and no to be looked at as a torture or something that a person should fear. He continues in the second line ending it with a symbol that indicates us o the main subject and which is 'death' as it links with good night. The third line of this first stanza repeats the word 'Rage', and that repetition gives emphasis to command the fight against death. In this stanza there was also a repetition of sounds with 'age', 'rage', 'go' and 'gentle', and that gives a rhythm to the poem.

In the second stanza of this poem, starts of with 'though' which suggests a contrary statement to what is happening, and then the speaker completes giving the father examples of others who die, and tells him that death is inedible even for wise men who also fight death even though they know however wise they are, they use no impression, and thats why they fight death for more. The tone of the speaker up to this stage has risen up to be more of rage as he is now telling his father that even great people fight death and that he should. This all shows us how much the speaker loves his father and wants him to live longer.

In the third stanza he completes saying that even good men cry by the last wave and which is death. The speaker gives a nice imagery with 'green bay' and the fact that death is gloomy, he puts out this image to brighten it. Again in he last line of this stanza, 'Rage' is repeated to confirm for his father o fight even more now against death.

The fourth stanza starts off with 'wild men' which shows an adventurous person, someone who lives life to the full, have caught the 'sun', which in our case represents life to grab hold of, and that again gives us another image, but this time a lovely one, and continues to 'not o gentle into that good night'.

The speaker here is giving bright examples and cases to his father to give him hope and to keep holding him in place and so he does not give up to death as the son does not want.

The fifth stanza also begins with another type of strong man and which are 'grave men', who in the speaker's eye are serious men who havent been wilder in life, they havent enjoyed life to the full like 'wild men' have. And yet they fight death. And yet again he repeats 'rage' to urge his father o fight bond death. The above five stanzas and the speaker is giving he father plenty of examples of great and strong and adventurous and even wise men who all when their time have come to take their lives away they fought against it and against death and thats what the speaker wants t=is father to do so badly, he does not want to be left behind and as all sons fear that one day they will be left behind by either of their parents. Keep survival is what the speaker is giving us an image of by setting these examples to his father.

Now in the sixth stanza, the speaker is losing his father once and for all where 'sad height' suggests the distance that is being created now between the father and the son as the father is moving gradually from son. The father is now dying and the son cannot do anything to help him fight that. In the second line, he speaker is now begging and is ready to accept anything to happen to him from his father instead of him giving up to death, and that is why he starts of he second line saying 'Curse, bless me'. You can se the contradiction between cursing and blessing where both of them line in different areas, 'with your fierce tears', is also another push for the father to be angry as the speaker prays for him not to go gentle into his good night.

The last two lines where a rhyming couplet as the ended with 'night' and 'light', the whole poem as overall did not have much of a rhyme and it gave us upon a message to fight what we are struggling with no matter what it is, as death here is even fought against then things that are simpler in life would be easier to fight. The language that have been used in this poem have been straight forward vocabulary which is used beautifully to emphasis survival for the father from death, while the tone almost kept angry.