Comparing Poems about Death

Comparing Poems about Death
Felicia Farmer
ENG125: Introduction to Literature
Ashley Dornbusch
8/6/2012

The two poems “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” written by Dylan Thomas and “Dog’s Death” written by John Updike are very good poems to compare and contrast to each other. They are both about losing someone who is important to you. One is about losing a pet and the other about a person. In “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” the author is trying to convince his father to not give in to death and fight to stay alive and Dog’s Death is about an unnamed puppy that got hurt or became ill that dies on the way to the veterinarian. This paper will define and point out the content, form and style of each poem as well as the difference and similarities of the form and style in both poems also. The poem “Dog’s Death” written by John Updike and the theme of this story is about a couple getting a new puppy. We are led to assume it is a puppy instead of an adult dog because they have not named her, they just refer to her as she and the narrator says that the puppy is “Too young to know much” (Clugston, 2010). They were also still trying to train her to use the newspaper to wet on, they mention in line three saying “To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor” (Clugston, 2010). They noticed that she was not feeling well and thought that playing with her would liven her up it did not, she was dying and you can tell that because the narrator says “And her heart was learning to lie down forever” (Clugston, 2010). So they take her to the vet and she is in the narrators lap on the way there and she tried to bite him right before she passes away. When they get back home they see that she was learning to use the newspaper because as the narrator says that she “had endured the shame Of diarrhea and had dragged across the floor To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog” (Clugston, 2010). So even though she was sick and hurting she still tried to make it to the newspaper to go potty before they find her and take her to the veterinarian when she passes away in the car.
The poem “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” written by Dylan Thomas could be about his father because he says “And you, my father, there on the sad height,” (Clugston, 2010) at the end of the poem the poem. He is telling his father whom the poem is about to not give up and fight the battle to not die so soon when he says Do not go gentle into that good night,/ Rage, rage against the dying of the light”(Clugston, 2010). It seems like he is begging his father to not give up and trying to get him to fight to say alive. He mentions that “Good men, Wild men and Grave men” (Clugston, 2010) eventually do pass away, but that they all fought to hold on to their lives. He just wants his father to fight the good fight and stay with him as long as he possible is able to. Even though “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” focuses on his father dying and “Dog’s Death” is about a puppy getting hurt and dying they are both about death. Both poems are very sad and easy to understand what is happening in the poems. In the first few lines of both poems you can tell that the author was upset about the death of the puppy and the thought of his father dying. For example in “Dog’s Death” in the first line he says “She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car” ” (Clugston, 2010) so they were unsure of what happened to her. And in though “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” he is just begging over and over to his father “Do not go gentle into that good night” (Clugston, 2010) asking him to not die. In “Dog’s Death” there really is not much to it, but there are five stanzas in the poem. A stanza is a set of lines in a poem, set apart from other sets of lines by space. Each stanza comprises its own unit. The break/space between stanzas generally indicates a pause between thoughts, concepts or actions (Hewitt 2006). There is one case of repetition when the author repeats “Good Dog” (Clugston, 2010) in lines four, five and twenty one. This is important because they would tell the puppy “good dog” when it used the newspaper to potty on and when they got back home from taking the puppy to the veterinarian they noticed that it tried to make it to the newspaper when it had bad diarrhea right before they noticed it was ill so they were saying “good dog” one more time. And there are also a few different cases of rhyme in this poem as well. There are three different rhymes and they are “fur and her”, “tears and disappeared”, and “frame and shame” (Clugston, 2010). He also uses a metaphor when he says “And her heart was learning to lie down forever” (Clugston, 2010) meaning that she was slowly dying. He really did not use to many techniques in this poem because it was very to the point and did not leave you any room to question what was going on. In “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” the author uses several metaphors in his poem. Metaphors are used in poetry to explain and elucidate emotions, feelings, relationships other elements that could not to described in ordinary language (Smith, 2002). He is saying “Do not go gentle into that good night” (Clugston, 2010) and by Good Night he is meaning death. Another metaphor is when he says “Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight” (Clugston, 2010) and he means that the wild men are catching the sun and singing to it. The author also uses repetition and rhyme a lot in this poem. He repeats “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” and “Do not go gentle into that good night” (Clugston, 2010) each several times. And as for rhyme there are two different ones. There is no specific pattern besides that is the last word of each line. The first rhyme is “night, light, right, night, bright, light, flight, night, sight, light, height, night and light” and the second is “day, they, bay, way, gay and pray” (Clugston, 2010). Both literatures “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” and “Dog’s Death” are poems and “Dog’s Death” is not very structured while “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” is a very structured poem. They could have both been short stories but by making the poems with less content shows the emotion better because they are both short and to the point. Both poems have repetition, rhyme and are about death, those are the main similarities they share. “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” has a lot of metaphors in the poem, where “Dog’s Death” does not and they have very different structures as well. “Dog’s Death” was written by John Updike who became interested in writing at a young age. Growing up in Pennsylvania, his early inspiration to be a writer came from watching his mother, an aspiring writer; submit her work to magazines (poetryfoundation ND). So seeing her get her work put in magazines made aspired him to become a writer himself. By the time he was a teenager he already had poems published in magazines. He is not a lyrical poet though he is rather objective and straight to the point with his writings. He does not use a lot of metaphors because he likes the point of what he is writing to be plain to see. “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” is written by Dylan Thomas who became interested in writing while he was in school. He started writing when he accepted a job at a local newspaper in London and then in 1951 he wrote Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. Thomas uses the poem to address his dying father, lamenting his father 's loss of health and strength, and encouraging him to cling to life (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008).Even though he was begging his father to stay alive, Thomas died a year after the poem was published from drinking too much. This is a villanelle poem which is a form of poetry popularized mainly in France in the sixteenth century. It usually expressed pastoral, idyllic sentiments in imitation of the Italian villanelle (Cummings, 2005). Dylan Thomas was a very lyrical poet because he liked to express his feeling and get very emotional with his writings. Both of the authors have very different writing styles, Thomas is an emotional poet and Updike was a critical writer that did not put a lot of emotion into his writings. Thomas used a lot of metaphors as you can tell in his poem “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” and was very emotional with it because it was about his father. Both of these poems were very emotional and probably mean a lot to the authors. Whenever dealing with death it is never easy especially if the person is giving up and not wanting to fight and rage against the dying of the light (Clugston, 2010). This paper defined and pointed out the content, form and style of each poem as well as the difference and similarities of the form and style in both poems. References
Clugston, R.W. (2010). Journey into Literature. Retrieved from http://content.ashford.edu/books
Cummings, M.J. (2005). Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. In Cummings Study Guide. A Retrieved from http://cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides2/DylanThomas.html.
Hewitt, J.C.. (March 14, 2006). What is a Stanza. In Poewar. Retrieved from A A A A http://poewar.com/what-is-a-stanza/.
Poetryfoundation, (ND) John Updike, Retrieved from A A http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/john-updike
Shmoop Editorial Team. (November 11, 2008).Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night. A A Retrieved from http://www.shmoop.com/do-not-go-gentle-into-that-good-night/
Smith, G. (2002). Understanding the basics of metaphor in poetry. In Tnellen. Retrieved , from A http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/dthomas.html.

References: Clugston, R.W. (2010). Journey into Literature. Retrieved from http://content.ashford.edu/books Cummings, M.J. (2005). Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. In Cummings Study Guide. A Retrieved from http://cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides2/DylanThomas.html. Hewitt, J.C.. (March 14, 2006). What is a Stanza. In Poewar. Retrieved from A A A A http://poewar.com/what-is-a-stanza/. Poetryfoundation, (ND) John Updike, Retrieved from A A http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/john-updike Shmoop Editorial Team. (November 11, 2008).Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night. A A Retrieved from http://www.shmoop.com/do-not-go-gentle-into-that-good-night/ Smith, G. (2002). Understanding the basics of metaphor in poetry. In Tnellen. Retrieved , from A http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/dthomas.html.