Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Dylan Thomas Analysis

Death. It's something that is always lurking in the corner of our minds. It comes on its own time, no forewarning, no schedules, no planning. In in some morbidly ironic way it’s the only thing that is completely guaranteed, no additional fees, no extra shipping cost and of course it’s always on time. Humans however seem to have mixed views on it. In the poems Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas and After a Time by Catherine Davis death is examined and thoughts on the ways we should receive and handle it are the main themes of each of these poems. Thomas and Davis do this by using imagery, syntax, and an interesting underlying meaning. The imagery in each of these poems is very descriptive and helps to set the mood in each
one. Dylan Thomas uses examples of different types of men to show how different people treat death. Using Wise men, Good men, Wild men, Grave men, and finally his own father to represent types of human emotion. Thomas uses the word night to hint that he is talking about death. He compares these different men and how they lived to how they will die. Saying Wise men know that the end is the end. Wild men however learn to late. Catherine paints a picture of losing a game. This is her analogy for death. She mirrors the Thomas poem by comparing life to a game, one that we are all losing or will lose at some point. Both of these poems use strong syntax to convey their message.
In Catherine’s poem she repeats the last lines of many of the stanzas. As if to affirm us all she takes the line “And we go stripped at last the way we came.” and uses it to close four out of the six stanzas in After a Time. Davis’s poem has almost a slow, resigned tone to it. Another interesting part of the syntax in this story is she adds some form of the loss into almost every stanza. This shows how she truly seem to feel that there is nothing anyone can do to stop death and she feels that raging against it is pointless. Thomas on the hand feel the exact opposite and his sentences reflect that. Unlike Davis’s slow tone this poem has a fast, almost desperate one. Every line he stanza comes across as pleading. Thomas repeats the word rage in every stanza of his poem. Except he doesn’t use it in a traditional sense. He isn’t talking about being mad, rather he’s talking about fighting as hard as you can against death. He adds the word rage to enhance whatever line he used it in. Creating the desperate tone that was mentioned
above. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night and After a Time have interesting underlying meanings.
They portray two very different outlooks about death. In Dylan Thomas’ poem he urges that the people he describes to not go easy into death. To fight with all they have against that “good night”. He brings in different types of people to show that even those they have lived different lives they must all try to hang on as long as possible. In his last stanza he trying to convince his father to stay. He believes that even if a person has to eventually go into the light, they should not go without putting up a great fight. Catherines poem ,on the other hand, displays the opposite of that thought. She seem to believe that it is all inevitable. We will all one day die and it’s pointless in her view to rage against it when it happens. She says no luck or wit can beat a losing game. Stating that we are all fighting a losing game. In the line “And we go stripped at last the way we came.” is a nice analogy for the fact that when we came into this world we were blanks slates and that is the same way we will leave it. In her poem she says that we will rage and try to blame anything we can but it won't matter because we are all losing the same game. According to her everything we hold onto will leave us in the end, whether we like it or not. In the last stanza she makes a powerful claim that humans who rage at everything will go tame in the face of losing. In conclusion, both Dylan Thomas and Catherine
Davis used excellent examples of imagery, syntax, and meaning to write beautiful poems about death and how we should handle it. These two poems mimic each other in more ways than just the style of their writing. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night and After a Time both use certain aspects of style to portray their authors thoughts on life and death, two things that are relatable and inevitable for all humans.