Sound and Sense Chapter 14: Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

     

            In the poem Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, Dylan Thomas talks about death and proposes that we should fight against death and to not go quietly when death comes. Throughout the poem, the speaker brings up different ways men deal with death in the second stanza he writes, “Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night” (4-6).  The speaker believes that because these men are wise they fight against death because it is their last chance to make their words count for something, and they feel that they have not yet accomplished everything they need to before they die.  The speaker also refers to death as “That Good Night”, instead of just saying death. The casual diction fits well with the rest of the poem, because even though the topic is death the tone is not melancholy because of the flow of the rhyme scheme. The speaker adds a personal touch at the poem because he mentions his father: “And you, my father, there on the sad height” (16). In the end the speaker does not want his father to leave him, and the speaker is not ready to let his father go. The speaker wants his father to fight back in order for the speaker to have more time with his father.