Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Essay

Dylan Thomas’s poem, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” is a poem that focuses on death and the struggle to fight for life. In the last stanza, line sixteen, the reader finds out that the speaker is addressing his father. According to the Poetry Foundation, it is autobiographical because it was, “a poem written during his father's illness and in anticipation of his death.” The entire poem is written in an attempt to convince someone that people should not give in easily to death, but should rage against it. Therefore, Dylan Thomas is trying to encourage his father to hold on to his life and try his hardest to fight his impending death. In this convincing piece, numerous elements work together to create the complete atmosphere and purpose of the poem. One of the main elements used in the poem is imagery, with most of the images containing figures of speech. At the end of the first stanza, the image, “the dying of the light,” appears (3). This is one of the first major images used. It creates a visual representation of death by utilizing light as a metaphor for life. When the light dies out, the darkness, or death, takes over. The next important image can be found in the second stanza, line five. Here, the speaker uses personification of

In the first line, there is a contrast in the two words “good night.” This is because night is used to represent death, and death is not necessarily seen as a good thing. In the thirteenth line, the phrase “blinding sight” is very contradictory since sight cannot be experienced by those that are affected by blindness. It is used to show the great amount of insight that the blind still contain about life and death. He also uses a contrast in the last stanza when he says “Curse, bless.” Obviously, a curse is much different from a blessing. Although, I think this may show how conflicted he is over his father’s death. He knows it is inevitable, but yet he still hopes for a