Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Critical Analysis

Finding a Poet’s Motivation Through Psychological Criticism
There are many forms of critical analysis to apply to works of poetry. Yet, one that stands out with a unique way of interpretation is that of psychological criticism. Psychological criticism allows the critic to apply a psychological theory as a means of identifying the speaker’s motivation for voicing the poem. Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, written by Dylan Thomas, is a poem where this critical analysis can be used to draw out the significance of the speaker’s voice. In this poem, critics can use the psychological theory, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to determine the motivation behind the speaker’s emotional needs, love, and esteem.
Using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, one

“Rage, rage,” the speaker exclaims in every last sentence of every stanza. This is not a plea for the dying father to become angry but is a sign of encouragement to reignite the fire for life within himself to continue fighting against death. The repetition of “Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” is the speaker’s plea for their loved one to fight. The loss is obviously overwhelming to the speaker as the loss of any loved one would be to any person. Yet the loss is too much for the speaker to bear, which can be felt with the repetition and the urgency they exhibit for their father to keep fighting and find the will to

Through the death of the speaker’s father in the poem, the suffering on behalf of those who survive after a loved one has passed is highlighted in this work. Death has an immense way of obstructing the physical and biological needs of those left in its wake. Using the psychological criticism analysis one can determine that the motivation behind the poem was mourning the death of the father as a means for the speaker to cope so that their own needs for emotional expression, love, and esteem can be