And There's Nothing You Can Do About It.
Dylan Thomas" use of sarcasm and his attitude toward death in the poem, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" illustrate society's contradictory views of death. In this piece, the narrator is begging his dying father to hang on to life and to put up a fight against death. In life we are taught two ways to view death. This poem highlights the attitude of man toward death. It shows the reluctance in letting go of life and at the same time shows its inevitability.
Religiously speaking, we are taught to accept death as a natural, inevitable part of life. It is presented to us as a peaceful journey to a better place. However, we are also taught by society that living is the most important thing. Through millions of medical advances and milestones in healthcare, we strive to prolong life and stave off death as long as possible.
Thomas illustrates the combination of these conflicting attitudes in the first line of the first stanza, "Do not go gentle into that good night"(1). This idea of a "good" night being a metaphor for a "good" death is Thomas's way of acknowledging the fact that death is "good" because it is right and we cannot escape it. It is almost as if we are taught to not even question death because there is nothing we can do about it. However, Thomas does just that. By telling his father to, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light", the narrator questions our acceptance of death just as medicine has over the centuries (6). .
Instead of trying to relax his father, the narrator urges him to hang on because there are so many things left undone in one's life to leave it so soon. In this way I believe Thomas is using the term "good death" sarcastically. Many poets, by seeming to conform to what society or other institutions say is right, are actually rebelling against that very notion. For example, in the first stanza the narrator says that even though, "wise men at their end know dark is right/Rage, rage against the dying of the light"(4-6).
