Analysis Of Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night By Dylan Thomas

Rossetti’s poem is set as an Italian sonnet. It has an octave and a sestet; the octave tells us about when you are remembering her and how you will never forget her. Then the theme changes at the start of the sestet and she comes to tell the reader about what actually happens if you do forget someone and that she would be happier if you just forgot about someone than remember them and be sad for eternity. The poet distinctly creates a separation between the two sections not just because of the changing themes but also because when someone dies you are separated from them. Firstly, Rossetti makes the first two lines ambiguous because she says to ‘Remember her when I am gone’. This is ambiguous because as the reader you do not know if
she means that she has gone away to a different country or that fact that she has died. This continues into the second line ‘Gone away to the silent land’ this could either mean death like in the first line or it could mean that she had gone to a small village where it is more peaceful than before and it is like a ‘silent land’. She engages with the reader and almost builds a close relationship with them; by saying ‘hold me by the hand’ and you only would hold someone by the hand if you know them well and it comes across to the reader like this. Moreover, she wants the reader of the poem to feel as thought it is all right to forget if it makes you happy. She says that she would rather you ‘forget and smile’ she also wants you it to peaceful
‘For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had’
Meaning that you should take peace from a death and not anger or any other negative emotions. This also occurs in a poem by Laurence Binyon where he says
‘At the going down of the sun
And in the morning
We will remember them’
This reflects Rossetti’s poem where by they both say that you should remember the dead and especially the ones that have fought in wars. However, Charles Sorley conflicts this throughout his poem by saying ‘Give them not praise’ and ‘They are dead’. Sorley seems to suggest that even though we say that we will remember them we either don’t or when we do we don’t care. The poet also seems to be a bold character because if you have said that they are many people all over the world who have lost loved ones either by natural causes or by wars and to say a bold statement like that shows just how he feels.

Dylan Thomas faces the reality of death by stating that there is no point-remembering people who are ‘deaf’ and ‘blind’ and so you shouldn’t give sympathy to them.
Dylan Thomas in the poem ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’ chose a villanelle form for his poem. It consist of five tersest followed by a quatrain. It sounds harmonious because of the fact that the poem only has two rhyming sounds in the whole of the 19-lined poem. The structure is arranged by which the first stanza is talking about his father who died in 1952 then in the next four stanza he speaks about different types of people and then he finally returns to speak about his father in the final
stanza. The title of the poem ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’ is ironic because the night is referring to the death of his father and so it urges his father to fight his illness. His father never heard the poem so it shows a sign of hope almost like a prayer so that his father may live. He repeats this every other stanza. Then in the second line he tells us that we should all fight illness weather we are young or old whatever condition we are in we should always fight it. Therefore the whole poem revolves around him trying to make his father stay alive even if he feels like there is no hope. In the second stanza Thomas tells us that even the most clever and wise men that know that death is natural they to try and resist it and hold on to their lives as much as possible. In the second line of the second stanza it sates that they try and hold on as they have not made a big impact on society and have not given anything to the world. This continues to be the theme throughout the poem because in the third stanza he talks about good and honest men and how they don’t accept their deaths because they want to give more good examples too others. But in the fourth stanza he talks about people that have lived a good and happy life and when the end comes they don’t accept it. In the final stanza he talks about men who have lived a sober and humourless lives that when it comes near to their end the wish they have lived fun and interesting lives. Thomas’s poem is aggressive through the lines he chooses to repeat because of the villanelle’s rigid form. He chooses to repeat the lines “Do not go gentle into that good night” which has a strong iambic pentameter rhythm. The line itself is beautiful and is made more memorable when he uses the word “gentle” because he writes it as an adjective even though it should be an adverb. The other line he chooses to repeat is “Rage, Rage against the dying of the light” this is a strong line and emphasises his feelings because the iambic pentameter rhythm is broken and it is like he is urging his father to live on. Shakespeare writes an English sonnet unlike Rossetti’s Italian sonnet, but they both have a volta, Rossetti’s volta is showing less hope to more hope, where as Shakespeare’s is the opposite starting with how good and beautiful everything is then turning the thought to how everything loses it’s beauty eventually; apart from ‘thy eternal summer shall not fade’ meaning the sun.
This disagrees with Thomas’ poem when he thinks that even the sun is not eternal. Shakespeare writes his poem to another man. At the end of the poem Shakespeare uses a rhyming couplet, he rhymes ‘see’ with ‘thee’ this adds emphasis to the idea that the recipient has been immortalised by the poem. Shakespeare uses the words ‘breathe’ and ‘see’ in the penultimate line of his poem to emphasise more the fact that he will be remembered and that if people can see and breathe he will be remembered. Carol Ann Duffy follows this theme in her poem ‘War Photographer’; but hers is a modern concept of how to be remembered. She remembers those who have died (in war) through a war photographer’s view. It is thought that she is writing through the eyes of her famous friend, called Don McCullin, who is a photographer. It is different to Shakespeare’s poem as she can use the idea of remembering people not only through words, like Shakespeare has, but also through the photo’s that have been
taken. In the poem the photographer seems moved by the images and the repetition of the technical words like “dark room” and “spool” help us to think of the actual functions behind photography and the different things it makes us feel. This is then related to how different types of poetry make us feel. Duffy is saying that war photography is just like poetry as, just like the famous poems in world war one moved us, the famous Vietnam War photo of the naked child running away from the flames of napalm has the same affect. Duffy writes in an iambic pentameter rhythm that makes us feel like she is talking to us, this conveys to us how close to her the poem is and helps to emphasise the message. She also uses a rhyme scheme that is not very harmonious, this is just like in war, she wants to make the poem memorable but she doesn’t want it to sound too harmonious and serious, as that would not reflect wars. When she writes of a “red light” it reminds us of the blood that will be spilt on the battlefield. But also it reminds us of the red light in the Catholic Church when the bread and wine has become the body of Jesus Christ. This is called transubstantiation and this gives the photo the substance of something real that has happened in the past. The red light also contrasts with the “dark room” where the dark reflects the dark thoughts that go on in there. The “dark room” is also a technical term and draws attention because it is both metaphor and fact. Duffy also tells us that the photographer ‘has a job to do’; he has to stay professional and not matter how bad the world he must ‘not tremble’. This is emphasised as he is used to taking photos of ‘Rural England’ and now he is in a war zone taking photos with a threat to his life.

When she uses the creates a vivid image using the words: “fields which don’t’ explode beneath the feet of running children in a nightmare heat”.
Here she is further emphasising her point that war can’t be changed as easily as “ordinary pain” and that neither this photograph or poem is going to change the world. She is also comparing it to the famous photo of the Vietnam War. Gurney’s poem “To His Love” can be used to connect all of the poems together, because he wrote the poem when he believed that his childhood friend Will Harvey was dead (he was “missing in action”). Although he wrote the poem after he learned that William Harvey was still alive, this makes the poem have the remembrance of how Gurney felt at the time as well as remembering the past. This gives the poem a unique feel as he has the ability to show an image of strength, as he knows Harvey is alive. In the poem when Gurney writes, “he’s gone” its shows us that it is the end of the past and that it will only affect the future. When he writes of the “plans’ he made it is a strange feeling because he is imagining his death when he is still alive. Throughout his poem he gives us the feeling that many war victims carry on after the war. This is then shown when he writes of “sheep” because although sheep die they always seem to us to live forever, because they are always part of the landscape. This represents the soldiers in the army.
The strength of the poem is obvious, because we know he is writing when he knows that his friend is still alive. But the strength is shown through the use of the word “purple” as it s a royal colour and is a strong colour. So although he is remembering his friend, compared to the others his is a contrast because the others still only have the memories of their loved ones, whilst he is now able to make new memories with his friend. He uses this uses this colour to contrast the hideous reality of the corpse, that he cleverly calls a “red, wet thing”. Gurney suggests we should remember the person but forget the mere body. Thus this war poem takes an opposite view to Sorely sonnet.
Throughout all the poems the poets discuss remembrance and death in their own unique way and they all manage to convey their own feelings about death.