How Does Dylan Thomas Present Death In My Last Duchess

vehemently against his father giving up on life, he then also describes death as “that good night” which may mean he sympathises on some level with his father’s fatalistic attitude. This idea is also supported by the fact that Thomas in real life rarely had any money and was a heavy drinker, something that eventually led to his death in 1953. So it could be the case that in the end Dylan Thomas did go gentle into that good night, or maybe it was his own way to rage against the dying of the light.

In My Last Duchess, the vulnerability and fragility of life is shown through the monologue of an unhinged Duke. He is speaking to a Count's servant about his last Duchess, as he is planning to marry the Count's daughter. The poem uses subtle foreboding and eloquent speech to portray the Duke's obsessive madness.

The Duke begins talking about a portrait of his wife hanging on the wall, adding, “as if she were alive”. These little hints and Freudian slips the Duke makes add up to and culminate in the heavy implication of her death at his behest, “I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together.” We learn this was the case because of the
duchess’ flirtatious nature, or at least what the Duke perceived to be her nature. This sinister realisation is made even more chilling by the Duke’s trivial attitude, and the fact that he is using the topic as some light conversation before business. This apathetic, uncaring position on life and death is completely removed from the two other opinions we've talked about.

Prayer Before Birth and Do not go gentle both assign a vital importance to life, be that its preservation or freedom from corruption.
While arguably both are to some degree inflexible and solipsistic, they still have amount of caring and emotion towards world around them. The outlook of the Duke takes the negative attitudes to the extreme, while dispensing with the ethical virtues. He explains how even if he had “skill in speech” and was able to articulate his feelings to his wife it would still require him to “stoop”. This demonstrates his cold and uncompromising nature by not only stating that he would never be willing to concede any ground whatsoever, but because he is quite evidently a persuasive speaker as he eloquently argued his points up till then. This shows how he is quite willing to bend and manipulate the truth to suit
himself.

There is a strong sense of foreboding throughout the latter part of the poem; one of its main roots is from how he describes his late wife as his “last” Duchess. This infers that she wasn't the first. So this fact, combined with his impending marriage to the count’s daughter gives the reader a distinct feeling of an inevitable repeating cycle of events. This situation could be interpreted as the opinion that unless people like the Duke are stopped and put to justice they will continue to act on their uncaring world view. Another meaning is that the Duke represents the apathy and callousness for life that has appeared within figures of authority throughout history.

Three other poems that are relevant to this topic are “War Photographer”, “A Mother in a Refugee Camp” and “Remember”. These poems demonstrate the fragility of life through examples of war, poverty and the thoughts of one who is anticipating death. They exhibit three different perspectives of our mortality; the guilt of an impartial observer of death, the lingering grief of a parent whose child has died and the acceptance of death of the dying. Despite humanity’s preoccupation with extending and prolonging life, through our literary works we can also acknowledge, demonstrate and even embrace the short-lived and fragile nature of our existence.