Term Paper Categories
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Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
| Term Paper Title |
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night |
| # of Words |
824 |
| # of Pages (250 words per page double spaced) |
3.3 |
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
This is a poem about the joy and sadness that comes with the flash of burning life
soon blown out with nothing more then a sigh. It focuses on the sadness as those we care
for go far too gently into that good night. Of those who left before their time. As this
poem was written specifically for Thomas’s dying father it is even more poignant in the
emotional weight the words convey.
This poem radiates with intensity, in particular, the verse beginning: “wild men
who caught and sang the sun in flight” is simply beautiful poetry. Addressed to the poet's
father as he approaches blindness and death. The relevant aspect of the relationship was
Thomas's profound respect for his father, tall and strong in Thomas’s passionate mind but
now tamed by illness and the passing of time. The acceptance of death and a peaceful rest
afterwards are pushed aside in favor of an ungentle rage so blind it almost mirrors the
vigor of childhood frustration at the nature of things we are powerless to change.
Further more, the poem speaks as much of the loss of love and the feelings of one
left behind as of death itself. The meaning of the poem stays shrouded in metaphors like
the references to night as "good". He acknowledged his father stood somewhere he had
not, and perhaps saw what he could not. Thomas was not ready to let go of such an
important part of his life even though his father was facing an irreversible course, and
Thomas’s grief was perhaps all the greater. His statement of this love and grief remain
touching. Perhaps the feelings of his fading father should have been more important than
his own rage. These emotion seem to run unchallenged throughout the poem even though
the style beckons structure and discipline within the theme of "night" and "light".
In the tercet’s Thomas gives examples of men who meet death differently yet
alike. The first are "wise men," perhaps philosophers. They know "dark is right" because
they know what to look for at the end of life. In spite of their wisdom, however, they "do
not go gentle" because their words "had forked no lightning." This phrase has the force of
a symbol suggesting that wise men had lacked the ultimate power of nature. Thomas
therefore seems to be saying that the wise men were not wise enough, that their words
created no ultimate linguistic reality but vague speculati...Read entire document
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