Cullen Poulos

Literary Analysis

10/23/20

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Dylan Thomas was making a plea with

this statement. He was begging that his father does not accept death without a fight. His

combination of tone, syntax, and symbolism all lead to this conclusion. Delving deeper

into the poem it is realized that the syntax is the medium through which the tone is

created and that there are multiple layers of meaning within the symbolism.

The tone portrayed by Thomas in this poem a deathly sincere and somber one.

The tone plays a major role in conveying his message to the reader. The syntax is a key

aspect that helped to create this tone. For example, using do not instead of don’t

prolongs the phrase and puts more emphasis on the message. Another organization

choice used by the author is to not express that this message is for his dying father until

the very end. Waiting until the end of the poem to reveal this creates suspense for a

sense of reason within the poem. The reader might be asking themselves why is the

author telling me this, only to realize the purpose upon conclusion of the poem. This

suspenseful tone is also exaggerated by the repetition of the phrases at the end of each

stanza, it makes one wonder why so much emphasis on this one phrase, why is the

author so urgent with this message? The connection to the father at the end is a

connection that most readers would be able to make themselves, not wanting to lose a

loved one is an intense feeling and this ending to the poem would most certainly bring

out those intense feelings.

 Symbolism plays a strong role in the poem as well. The “good night” is

symbolic of death; the whole poem revolves around this idea. This idea that one should

not “go gentle into that good night” is expressed through the use of multiple examples

of men. I think that the author used this symbol for death for many reasons, the first

being that stating the message without disguising it somehow would have been too

blunt. Upon death nobody wishes to hear do not die so easily. This was the more

sensitive way to get the message across. An underlying symbolism within the poem and

the use of night as representative of death may be that following every night, there is a

morning. This could mean that the author is hopeful that even if his father does

succumb to death, or the night, he will be reborn as the morning comes.

This poem is the author's final plea to his father to not go without a fight, to not

accept death and allow it to take him away. The poet’s use of syntax to create a dark

and sincere tone while symbolizing death convey a strong message the poet deeply

desires to be followed. It must be wondered why the poet has thought of this

predicament from his father’s point of view, dying must not be an easy thing for one to

do, and to have your son telling you to dodge an undodgeable bullet must only make

this more difficult.