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Analysis Of Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

699 Words3 Pages

In Dylan Thomas’ poem, “Do Not go Gentle into that Good Night”, he speaks to his dying father. In his poem, he describes four groups of men and how they feel at the end of their respective lives as he pleads with his father not to die in a state of passivity, using fire and light as an analogy for life’s work and emotional states. Thomas urges his father not be “gentle” in death, (line 1) but rather to “burn and rave” (2). Thomas says, “Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight/
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay.” (13-14). “Blinding”, here, has a double meaning. On the natural level, it refers to his deteriorating vision in his old age. On the metaphorical level, it means blinding like a blinding light. As his natural eyes are blind, they “blaze like meteors.” This is both an expression of his inward happiness, as in the idiom, “to have one’s eyes light up with joy” and a reference to the man’s change in his old age--his eyes are like the meteors which blaze their path through the night sky. So during the night of death, he feels he is burning through the dark night of death. His fire is the fire of realized joy--after a near-lifetime of solemnity and perhaps unhappiness, he is now able to experience joy and radiant …show more content…

He is on the “sad height” (16), perhaps depressed as he grapples with the certainty of his death. Though still alive, he seems lifeless, allowing himself to quietly slip away, prompting the repeated line, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” (1). For Thomas, if his father cannot be happy at death, he desires him to at least be angry. Much of the language in the poem refers to anger and aggression. He repeats “rage, rage” (3) at the end of each stanza. “Curse, bless me now, with your fierce tears, I pray.” (17) He would prefer a curse from his father than mere apathy, if that is what it takes to cause him to

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