Point of view of the speaker in Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night by Dylan Thomas - Essay Example

10 July Poem tone and diction: Dylan Thomas illustrates the need for the elderly people to show resistance against death through prudent choice of diction and tone. Thomas has employed the villanelle tone that is essentially a French form of poetry (Grimes) because death, as a subject, cultivates the irony of requesting his dying father to show anger. Besides, the villanelle form of poetry is also consistent with the obvious repetition of lines e.g. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” (Thomas), and “Do not go gentle into that good night” (Thomas).

The diction in the poem varies across the stanzas. The first line’s diction has been purposefully chosen to make it a command. The second, third, fourth, and fifth stanzas are persuasive and encourage the father to show his “rage against the dying of the light” (Thomas). In the sixth stanza, the poet requests his father to be his usual self and scream and yell at him to signify his strength. The overall tone of the poem is an outcome of the form and diction used by Thomas. Thomas acknowledges the fact that life and death are interrelated by pairing “gentle” with “rage”, “light” with “night”, and “dying” with “good”.

Nevertheless, Thomas has made use of such diction that allows him to place his emphasis on life instead of death. This can be estimated from his frequent use of the words like “blaze”, “fierce”, and “green”. Dylan Thomas is upset to see his otherwise robust and radical father become weak and blind in his eighties and thus, persuades him to revert to life. Works Cited: Grimes, Linda S. “Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle.” 20 Nov. 2006. Web. 10 July 2011. . Thomas, Dylan. “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” n.d. Web. 10 July 2011. .