Ash Chen
IB Language and Literature
Mr. Thomas

Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” is one of the most famous villanelle in English poetry. Written by famous Welsh poet, Dylan Marlais Thomas and published in 1951, this is one of Thomas’ most popular and accessible poems. Throughout his lifetime, Dylan Thomas has suffered from pneumonia, which has prevented him from the conscription of World War II. His father, David Thomas, was a teacher. However, David’s dream has always been to become a poet. Thus he wasn’t satisfied with his life. During his later years, David Thomas fell critically ill losing his sight. Thus his son, Dylan wrote “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” as an encouragement for his father. Sadly, Dylan died one year after he wrote this poem. Until this day, the cause of the poet’s death is still uncertain as it is hypothesized that he died from an alcohol overdose. As mentioned above, “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” is a poem written by Dylan Thomas to his father as an encouragement during his father’s “sad height”. Almost losing his vision, Dylan’s father was giving up on his life. However, Dylan wanted his father to stand up and fight against the disease. As a highly inspirational poem, “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” speaks to the general audience urging them to cherish life. Especially to those giving up on life, this poem instills faith in those dreadful souls. At the same time, as Thomas is an atheist, the poem poses a question asking about the meaning of life. As one of the most prominent stylistic feature of this poem, a powerful tone, which reflects the speakers’ anger at the prospect of his father’s death, can be heard throughout. The fierce, urgent, and bitter tone of the poem is conveyed through the poem’s structure, diction, repetition, and rhyme scheme. Beginning with its structure, “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night”, is a type of villanelle. The poem has 19 lines with 5 tersest and one quatrain. It is written in a strict form in order to amplify its theme and tone. The rhyme scheme of this poem is ABAABA… except for the last line. The uniform rhyme scheme of the poem gives it a solemn and serious feeling. Moving on to the poem itself, the beginning of the poem starts of with an extended metaphor in which light and day represents life and night represents death. Next we are presented with 4 types of people as the speaker points out how each of them fights for their lives. Beginning with wise men, the speaker explains that though they know death is inevitable, “though wise men at their end know dark is right”, they are not giving in to death because they have not yet made an impact on the society. “Because their words had forked no lightning they do not go gentle into that good night”. Next, we move on to the good men where though it’s their last wave they wished that they had done more. As it said in the poem, “their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay”. Then, we have the wild men who try to make the most of their time but realized too late that they spent their life worrying about the passing of their time rather enjoying it. Here the sun’s rapid flight, which represents the life cycle, is part of the extended metaphor. “Wild men who caught the sung in flight”. Lastly for the grave men, the metaphor, “blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay”, compares the