Analysis Of Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night By Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas was a 20th century poet and was considered one of the best of his time.

He was born in 1914 in Swansea, Wales to parents David John and Florence Williams Thomas.

Thomas’s father was an english teacher at the Swansea Grammar School and was a large

influence on his son. Thomas soon began writing poems. His first poem was published at the age

of 12, but was later discovered as plagiarized. Thomas wrote and published his first collection of

original poems in 1936. In the year 1952 he published what is believed to be his maturest

collection of poems, title “Deaths and Entrances. Later he married and became a well known

poet. Thomas’s most famous poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” published in

1951, three years
Their character is

pushing up daisies above their graves. Even though death overtook them, they still get the last

say.

In 1952 Thomas’s father became ill and died. This was a major loss for Thomas, and

soon he began drinking and getting sick himself. His father’s death inspired Thomas’s most

famous poem, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” This poem was written for Thomas’s

father, encouraging him to fight death. Thomas wrote this poem as a villanelle, using the phrases

“Do not go gentle into that good night” and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” as the

main lines in the poem. “Do not go gentle into that good night” (lines 1, 6, 12, 18) is the first line

in the poem. Each time is is spoken by the speaker, its meaning changes. In the first stanza, it is

the introduction of the poem. It is the commanding words spoken, telling the reader to fight

against death and to not just simply give into it. The second stanza this phrase is indicative,

showing an action that is happening. The good and wise men are not going to give into death, but

will fight it. The fourth stanza is the same as the second stanza. Wild men are shown to put up
In this poem the speaker is pleading the reader, and in the end his father, to be angry

and death and to fight against it. But as humankind has learned over the centuries, no one can

win the battle against death. In 1933 Thomas wrote the poem “The Force That Through The Green Fuse Drives The

Flower.” Death is a major theme in this poem, describing how death cannot be avoided no matter

what. The first stanza of the poem goes straight into imagery. It shows that not only does death

have dominion over the trees, but also the speaker himself. The speaker says, “The force […]

[…] that blasts the roots of trees / is my destroyer (lines 1-3). The subject of death is apparent in

the speaker’s tone. He says, “The hand […] Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind /

Hauls my shroud sail. / And I am dumb to tell the hanging man / How of my clay is made the

hangman's lime” (lines 11-15). Here the reader sees a murder, a man killing another with a rope.

The shroud in line 13 is a symbol for a burial blanket, the one used on the speaker. The speaker

uses more imagery in lines 21 and 22, saying, “And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb / How at

my sheet goes the same crooked worm” (lines 21-22). The worm in line 22 is alluding to