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  • Essay / Symbolism in the works of Dylan Thomas

    Death is an inevitable factor in life, which all humanity must eventually face. What varies from person to person is how they deal with this “ending.” Some accept it with grace and tranquility, while others fight it until their last breath. Dylan Thomas is one of those people who prefers the latter. In Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night", the speaker uses repetition as well as imagery to juxtapose light with night in an attempt to encourage his father not to give in to weakness near the end of his life. plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Thomas's speaker feels it is necessary to emphasize to his father the importance of "Rage, rage against the dying of the light" (Thomas 93). All the other stanzas end with this line where he encourages his father to fight against the “death of light”, to fight against this darkening of life, against death and aging. This repetition places greater emphasis on the line, constantly reminding the reader, or the speaker's father, of its main message. Against all this death, “the father must become angry, and in doing so, he separates himself from it” (Westphal 2). He can separate himself from this weakness and submission of death. This is what his son pleads. He punctuates the stanzas with this line as a final reminder to fight and resist impending weakness. The speaker alternates the repetition of “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” with “Do not go gently into that good night.” All other stanzas end with this line, acting as another reminder to his father and the reader. Just as the other line encourages one to fight against the weakness of death and aging, this line warns him not to give in easily and not to be "soft" in the face of death. The first five stanzas all end with one of these two stanzas, and the final stanza contains both. The importance of these two lines could not be clearer. The rhyme scheme repeats even with ABA, with the rhyme always returning to "light" and "night" to make their importance even clearer. The speaker “advocates active resistance to death just before death.” This repetition seems almost as if he is imploring, even begging his father to resist, to “burn and rave” instead (Thomas 93). The speaker also uses his repetition to talk about other men, "wise men... good men." ..wild men...grave men” all arrive at the same apparently pleasant fate of death, and yet they enter it having learned “too late, they have saddened [the sun]” (Thomas 93). The sun is the symbol of their life, these men believed they were celebrating life, but as they died they realized it was too late, death is upon them and they can do nothing. Instead of this pleasant acceptance of the end of a life they thought was accomplished, there is a feeling of doom that it is over. As Daiches suggests of Thomas's poetry, there is this "note of doom in the midst of present pleasure, for in every moment change and death lurk" (Daiches 3). These men are all experiencing this hidden change, they knew that death was coming, but it changed for them, turned against them. They serve as examples of what the speaker wants his father to avoid. The two repeated lines of the poem end with the words “night” and “light” which in themselves require special attention from the reader. In this poem, “night” becomes synonymous with dying in the same way that “light” becomes synonymous with living. The speaker refers to death as “this good night” as well as a “death of light” (Thomas 93). Thomas uses these two.