Dylan Thomas "Do Not Go Gentle Into

Dylan Thomas "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" Dylan Thomas wrote "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" for his father in 1950. It was included in his anthology In Country Sleep in 1952. Dylan Thomas' father was a militant man during the course of his life, and "when in his eighties, he became blind and weak, his son was disturbed seeing his father become "soft" or "gentle" (Grimes, 2-3).

This is one of Thomas' more personal poems as we see him almost begging for his father to "rage, rage against the dying of the light" (line 19). The poem is divided into six stanzas, where the middle four offer his father examples of different kinds of men and their approach to death. In the second stanza, he quotes wise men and though they possess the knowledge of what awaits them in the afterlife, they do not go gently "because their words had forked no lightning" (line 5).

This is to say they went against the grain and spoke the truth in life but now find themselves rebelling against their wisdom. In the second stanza, Thomas quotes good men as "crying how bright/Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay" (lines 7-8). Here he argues with his father that moral men may do good deeds and live a virtuous life, but even they rebel against death in fear they might not have done enough.

Thomas takes the opposite in the third stanza by referencing men who have rebelled all their lives, wild men, who are now discovering too late, that they should have done otherwise. It is interesting to note, that the stanzas follow an 'aba aba' pattern, with ending lines alternating between "Rage, rage against the dying of the light" (lines 3, 9, 15) and "Do not go gentle into that good night" (lines 6, 12). This rhythmic pattern is as if Thomas is trying to give his father a subliminal message.

In the fourth stanza, Dylan Thomas uses serious, grave men as an example. Men who have suddenly come to see what life was truly about, but find that it is too late. Here, Thomas uses an example of the type of man his father was before addressing him directly in the last stanza. A lot of the imagery we have seen "in every stanza Thomas gives his reader some image of death and darkness." (Farrow, 22).

As a reader, we are given opposing views of light and darkness as if to choose the one we prefer and fight against it being taken away from us. As the pattern of this poem has continued in an 'aba aba' pattern, in the last stanza, Thomas ends with both of the repetitive lines, as a last attempt, perhaps to get his message across to his father. Here he urges his father to take death as he took life, and 'rage against the dying of the light' (line.