Rebellion Poem- Brittany Graul

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light

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.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Thomas, Dylan. "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night." Literature and Composition Reading Writing Thinking. Boston * New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. 926. Print.

 Death is inevitable. We know that all of humanity must at one point die. Death is a part of who we are essentially and it is a disease to which no one is immune. We all must experience death for ourselves; there is no avoiding it. In Dylan Thomas’ poem, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”, he urges to fight against death. He begs that his father fight against that inevitability, against who he is, and try his hardest to fight against his death. The speaker implores his father to “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” In essence, he wants his father to not go quietly into death, or rather “go gentle into that good night,” but to leave the world fighting. Though in his poem at the end, the speaker does directly address his father and asks him to rebel against death, Thomas certainly remarks on rebellion against death in general to all of his audience. Thomas’ poem asks that regardless of how you lived your life or who you are now, whether you were a man whose “frail deeds might have danced in a green bay” or one “who caught and sang the sun in flight,” that you must not welcome death with open arms and you must “rage” against it. Whether you are a “wise”, “wild”, “good”, or “grave” man, what is important is that you do not go gently out of this world, hence why this is repeated so often in the poem (“do not go gentle into that good night.”) Thomas is asking for a rebellion, or a fight, against death, due to his dying father, and it is death that is one of the very things that make us human. It is so central to us because it signifies our mortality, and therefore, Thomas is rebelling against himself because death is part of what makes us who we are.