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What Is The Mood Of Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

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The poem “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” was written by Dylan Thomas in 1951. It was originally published in the book of poetry In Country Sleep, and Other Poems. Thomas wrote the poem about his dying father in an attempt to get him to fight against death. The technical aspects of “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” can affect the theme. The poem is made up of nineteen lines and six stanzas. Each line consists of three lines, with the exception of stanza six, which has for lines. The rhyme scheme is ABA throughout, excluding the last stanza. This stanza has an extra line, making the rhyme scheme ABAA. These features were added to the last stanza in an effort to draw the reader's attention to this part of the poem. Some lines are …show more content…

This is expressed by the multiple examples of old men whom regret certain aspects of their lives and defy death even when they know their time is up. The speaker is urging his father to fight against old age and death. The meaning and subject of the poem influence the tone and mood. The tone is one of frustration and insistence. Thomas is slightly angry and demanding. His words are not a request, they are an order. The mood of the poem is is serious and solemn due to the poem focusing mainly on the issue of death. This mood and tone is created by words such as “burn”(2), “Grieved”(11) and “rage”(3) along with phrases such as “crying how bright”(7), “forked no lightning”(5), “near death”(13) and “fierce tears”(17). The insistent feeling is also created by the repetition of the lines “Do not go gentle into that good night”(1), and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”(3). The figurative language used also affect how the meaning, tone and mood are interpreted. Figurative language is used throughout “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” to express the theme and the meaning, along with other literary aspects. There are a few examples of personification within the poem such as when the poet personifies old age by stating that …show more content…

. . should burn and rave at the close of day”(2). This means that old men should fight when they are dying and their age should not prevent them from resisting death. Another example of personification in the poem is “Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay”(8). This line personifies the men’s frail deeds by saying that they could have danced. This means that the potential actions of the men could have flourished and contributed greatly to their lives. The metaphor “. . . words had forked no lightning. . .”(5) is about how the men had done nothing significant with their lives. They had not achieved anything great or caused a major change. The simile “Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay” is about how even grave and serious men will fight against death for as long as they can. Another notable example of figurative language within the poem is “. . . blinding sight”(13). This oxymoron details how the men can see very well and it is very obvious to them that they will die soon, but they know that they can control how they will leave this world. There is an abundance of imagery within this poem, a few examples of which are “. . . danced in a green bay”(8), and “. . . caught and sang the sun in flight”(10) . These examples of imagery are both appealing to the sense of sight by using descriptive words such as “Green” and “danced” in the first example and words such as “caught” and “flight” among others. The second example also appeals to the sense of sound by

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