Killing an Already Dead Man

Fathers and Sons

Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle into that good night"

“Do not go gentle into that good night” is a poem about a man and his dying father. The man in the poem urges the father to fight on for survival and not to give in to “the dying of the light”.

In the opening line the man tells the father not to succumb so quietly or so easily to death, no matter how comforting it may appear: “Do not go gentle into that good night”. The son then proceeds to tell the father that despite his accumulated years over the passage of time, he should live life to its fullest to the very end: “Old age should burn and rave at close of day”. Following up on what was said in the first line, the son tells the dying father to fight and hold on to the life that he still has. He exhorts his father to “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”.

The son refuses to accept that his father is like other men. He believes that he is in some way special, so he compares his father’s situation to those of other men. He indicates that “Though wise men at their end know dark is right,” meaning that although other men accept their death, this is “Because their words had forked no meaning.”

The son uses the terms, “Good