Do not go Gentle into that Good Night – Dylan Thomas: Poem Analysis

Themes: Death

Type: Villanelle

Background

• Written by Dylan Thomas when his father was dying, and the poem is addressed to him
• It is a vigorous, impassioned diatribe against the inevitability of death
• The poet is encouraging his father to fight against death with all this strength
• Describes valiant and praiseworthy behaviour of different kinds of outstanding men – “wise men”, “good men”, “grave men” and hopes his father will be one of these things

Form and Structure

• The poetic form is villanelle (19 lines) – 5 groups of 3 lines (tercets) and a final quatrain
• The rhyming scheme of the tercets are ABA and the quatrain is ABAA
• Villanelle is to create emphasis with repetition – Thomas builds up rage and indignation
• The pattern of the villanelle is based on the idea of alternating night and day.
• Thomas is a very passionate poem but is organised into villanelle structure – but doesn’t lose it meaning

Language and Imagery

• The poem contains many contrasts – night/day, gentle/rage, dying/light, sang/grieved, etc
• There is the imagery of sunrise/sunset – darkness preoccupies Thomas (extended metaphor – day represents life, the night the afterlife, and the sunset represents the moment of death)
• Other imagery – lightning, blazing meteors & other images of lights and fire to liven intensity and capture the readers’ attention
• Paradox – the dying men who have gone blind can still “see” in a metaphorical sense
• Alliteration – “blinding” “blaze” “blind” and “be”
• Intensely personal poem – which is a source of its passion
• First-line – “Do not go gentle into that good night” – repeated four times

Themes

• Morality – lamented with the necessity and inevitability of death (to rebel against fate)
• Old Age – He urges the dying to fight their fate and hold on. Thomas argues wild, reckless, passionate behavior is wiser than to calmly accept fate.
• Transience – wonders what people could’ve done in the world had they been here longer
• Wisdom/Knowledge – wise people are pictured as being calm and collected, but this poem suggests is a determination to struggle – more dignified to fight than lie down & die
• Family – spoken from a son to a dying father, the poem suggests the intensity and power of family. Also works a role reversal – it is a son giving the father advice.