Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Analysis

Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” teaches an invaluable lesson to the reader early on in the poem: always struggle until your last breath. Through the use of the poetic form of villanelle, a nineteen-line poem with two repeating rhymes and two refrains, Thomas portrays the emotional struggle of a young man pleading with his father on his deathbed, exclaiming that he needs to cling on to life and not pass away without leaving an impact on society. Throughout the poem, he asserts that old men at the ends of their lives should resist death as strongly as they can, encouraging them to struggle and rage, infuriated that they have to die at all. Over the course of the poem, we discover the speaker holds a personal stake in the issue: his own father is dying. Upon further reflection, it is clear to the reader that the driving purpose behind the poem is that through so much

Between the constant verbal assaults and days standing for hours on end, Plebe summer challenges each individual to push themselves farther than ever before. Everyday, I only had one goal in my mind from the time I woke up, to the running in the scorching heat: how much longer do I have until I get to go to bed? With regards to Thomas’s poem, I knew that everyday was going to be a challenge to make it back to my bed. Despite the majority of what the training staff taught us, the most important lesson I took away from the summer was that if I put forth my best effort in everything I do, and continue to fight a bit more each and everyday, I will succeed as a Midshipmen here at the Naval Academy. Although Plebe Summer progressively got better each and everyday as one adjusted to the strict regiment, as noted in the second stanza of Thomas’s poem, it does not take a wise man to know that all good things must come to an