Summary Of Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night By Edward Thomas

This poem dramatizes the conflict between dying easily and fighting to live. Thomas wrote this poem for his father who was dying from pneumonia. We see from this poem that often people regret not being as good as they should be, and so they fight to continue living, they “rage, rage against the dying of the light.” (line 3) This shows us that we may be in the same place as those men mentioned in the poem, the : “wise” (4), “good” (7), “wild” (10), and “grave” (13). In the first stanza of the poem, it says “Do not go gentle into that good night” (1), and in the second stanza it says “men at their end know dark is right” (4). This shows that though we know something is right, we still may fight it. It may seem like a good reason, but it is just …show more content…
We see this in line fourteen, where it says, “Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay” this is a simile that compares the blind eyes of “grave men” (13) to “meteors” (14). It provides us with a strong mental image that helps to further engage the reader. An example of personification can be found in line ___ saying, “Old age should burn and rave” (2). Age is not a human, but raving is a human characteristic, so this makes this line an example of personification that is used to help the reader to connect more and to evoke emotion in the reader that will be affected by their unique paradigm as they remember times they themselves have burned and raved. Another example of personification is in line five, stating, “words had forked no lightning.” This means that the “wise men” felt that they had not made a difference in the world, and that their words had not changed anything. But, words cannot “fork[ed]” “lightning” because they are inanimate. A similar situation is in line ___, “deeds might have danced.” Deeds cannot complete the human action of dancing, which means that the deeds are personified. Repetition is a vital part of this poem, and we see this in the repetition of two lines, “Do not go gentle into that good night. / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” The first of the two, “Do not go gentle into that good night” is repeated in stanzas two, four, and six, and the line “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” is repeated in stanzas one, three, five, and six. This means that each is repeated four times each because those two lines hold the meaning of the poem. Repetition helps to ensure that the reader thinks more in depth about the line in order to detect the true meaning and reason behind it. These lines were written to emphasize to Thomas’ father that he should fight for his life and “not go gentle” to his imminent