English 113
27 March 2013
The Fight for a Father In the poem “Do not Go Gentle into That Good Night” Dylan Thomas Talks about not going in to “that good night”. At first sight of the poem it is hard to tell what he is talking about but when you get to the third line it is clear that he is speaking about death as the “good night”(1). The death that he is referring to is the death of his father. Dylan Thomas believes that no one should give up in life because there is always something great you can accomplish. Dylan Thomas loved his father very deeply and did not want him to die. He believed that you should never give up and express your anger at death and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”(3) as he says. As a son that didn’t want to let his dad go he was the one who was angry and he wanted his dad to feel the same way he did. He also didn’t want his father to give up when he says “through wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words have forked no lightning”(4-5) meaning that smart people like his father know death is inevitable but he felt that his father had not accomplished everything he could of in his life. He might have also wanted to spend more time with his dad because he didn’t get to see him enough but that’s a stretch. Dylan Thomas talks about “good men, The last wave by ,crying how bright”(7) he is referring to the last wave of soldiers and how they are crying out like they know they are about to die but they still keep pushing forward in to the fight. Just like what he wanted his father to do. “the last wave”(7) could also mean waves from an ocean typically is the biggest wave. Waves are powerful and crash until they fizzle out and die. He also speaks of the “bay”(8) being green. Green typically is I sign of life and power. The ocean is life and the wave into the shore is the end of that wave or the life of his father. In lines ten through twelve he speaks of “wild men”(10) meaning that there carefree ways and there craziness made it possible for them to stay away from death. The wild men “caught and sang the sun in flight”(10) meaning that the men were creative and adventurous but they found out more about the world and realized they would die at some point in their life. To break It down even more the “sun”(10) represents the earth and of its beauty that it possesses and “flight”(10) represents the life span of a man. So just when you think everything is happy when your born like the “sunrise” you realize you are just preparing for death or the “sunset”. The last type of men he talks about is “grave men” (13) which could have two meanings. He could be talking about serious men who don’t play around or he could be talking about men that are about to die. The more practical meaning would be about the men that were about to die but even know that they are dying they still use all the might to stay alive. The Grave men “Who see with blinding sigh”(13) meaning there losing the eye sight but metaphorically speaking they might be crippled with lose of sight, but they can still use there other scenes to stay alive. It’s not over just because you are down you can fight back and learn how to cope with your problems all it takes it willpower. He continues by saying that “ blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be