Analysis Of Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

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Dylan Thomas pleads with his father and humanity to fight for their lives until the end in his poem “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” Thomas’s work compelled me to believe in continuing to battle for life no matter how hard it can get. Through his masterful use of the theme of persistence even near the very end, the structure of the poem, and the precise diction of the poem, Thomas artfully portrays the will he has for his father to hang onto his life. Throughout “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” Thomas uses the theme of persistence to encourage his father to resist death. I am led to believe that his father is ill and has been for a long time because of the way Thomas is begging his father to fight. He describes the end as a “…good night,” but he still entreats his father to fight even though death might be easier than fighting on (line 1). Thomas notes that many other men know to push on in the battle of life, so he knows his father can do it as well. Thomas takes full advantage of a set format in “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” Each of the five triplets follows an “aba” rhyme scheme and the final stanza, a quatrain, …show more content…
The light mentioned in line three symbolizes the soul of Thomas’s father. Thomas employs the words “…bright,” “…sun…,” and “…blaze like meteors…” to symbolize the burning life of his father (lines 7, 10, 14). By also writing phrases like “…good night,” Thomas alludes to death (line 1). Night is the natural opposite of day and it is the ending of light. Because of this, I interpreted that the “…good night” is the end of Thomas’s father’s battle with his illness (line 1). Thomas knows that “…dark is right…”, but he believes that his father must use all of the day he can muster and fight against slipping into the night (line