According to William Shakespeare, human beings should "[b]e absolute for death" (Bartlett, 211). The poem "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas is a message of encouragement by the author to his father. No matter how useless or hopeless life seems, one should never surrender to despair and death. .
Dylan Thomas opens the poem with a request, "Do not go gentle into that good night." The metaphors "good night," "old age," and "close of the day" allude to death. It appears that Thomas is trying to advise people to fight for their lives until the end, when death hovers at the door, when "the light" is about to go out forever. One should not give up trying. The tone of the poem is hard and strong. "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." .
Examples of different kinds of lives are used in the poem to illustrate the author's attitude toward life. For men such as scholars or philosophers, who are learned and wise, despite all the knowledge they have accumulated, all the wisdom they have gained, they understand that "dark is right." The end is inevitable and unavoidable. They cannot do anything to change it. However, they do not let death come and take them away too easily. They fight. "Do not go gentle into that good night." .
Not only do wise men fight, but good men also "rage against the dying of the light." The third tercet shows us the lives of those who have dome good deeds. Their dreams might be unfulfilled, their actions forgotten. However, these good men do not give up and wait for death to overcome them. .
At the next example, the author describes "wild" men who "caught and sang the sun in flight." They live life to its fullest potential. They risk danger. They pour all energy in acts as perilous yet exhilarating as "[catching] the sun in flight." They too, however might realize in the end, belatedly or not, that they will have to die some day. Yet, they will not "go gentle into that good night.