Study Guide: Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas
Summary
Lines 1-3
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The speaker addresses an unknown listener, telling him not to "go gentle into that good
night."

At first this is a puzzling metaphor but, by the end of line 3, we realize that the speaker is
using night as a metaphor for death: the span of one day could represent a man's lifetime,
which makes the sunset his approaching demise.

"That good night" is renamed at the end of line 2 as the "close of day," and at the end of line
3 as "the dying of the light." It's probably not an accident that the metaphor for death keeps
getting repeated at the end of the lines or that the two rhyming words that begin the poem are
"night" and "day."

The speaker thinks that old men shouldn't die peacefully or just slip easily away from this
life. Instead, they should "burn and rave," struggling with a fiery intensity.

The word "rave" in line 2 connects with the repeated "rage" at the beginning of line 3,
uniting anger, power, madness, and frustration in a whirlwind of emotion.
Lines 4-6
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Even though smart people know death is inevitable (line 4), they don't just accept it and let
themselves fade away (line 6), because they may not have achieved everything they were
capable of yet (line 5).

The metaphor of night as death continues here, with death figured as the "dark." The speaker
admits that sensible, smart people realize death – traveling into "the dark" – is inevitable and
appropriate. After all, we're all going to die, and it's a totally natural process.

But even though clever people know they're going to die, they don't simply accept it. They
don't take the news lying down.

In "their words had forked no lightning" (line 5), the "words" represent the actions, the
speech, or maybe the artistic creation of intelligent people.

These words don't fork lightning, which means they don't split and divert the massive
electrical shock of the lightning bolt, which draws it toward themselves like a lightning rod
instead. Even though the "wise men" have put everything they can into their "words," those
words weren't attractive enough to make the lightning split.

Basically, they haven't really made much of a mark on the world.

The bright electric current of the lightning bolt adds a new twist to the light/dark and
day/night metaphors, suggesting that really living life is more like getting zapped by an
electric shock than like feeling the gentle radiation of the sun.

As the poem continues, we'll see more connections between great men and great artists.
These connections imply that artistic expression is a more concentrated version of life.
Lines 7-9
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The basic parts of this sentence are the subject, "Good men" (line 7), and the verb, "Rage"
(line 9). In the speaker's opinion, true goodness consists of fighting the inevitability of death
with all your might: "Good men […] Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Next, Thomas adds an image of the ocean waves; the most recent generation of good men,
the "last wave by" (line 7), are about to crash against the shore, or die.

As they approach death, these men shout out how great their actions could have been if
they'd been allowed to live longer.

Or, to use the metaphor in the poem, as their wave crashes against the rocks, the men shout
how beautifully that wave could have danced in the bay if it could've stayed out at sea
instead of rolling onto the beach.

So this generation is like a wave, death is like the breaking of the wave on the shore, the sea
is like life, and the dancing waters in the ocean are like beautiful actions.

The bay is "green" because the sea is really brimming with life – plants, seaweed, algae, etc.

In this image, being out at sea is like life and coming back to the barren shore is death – the
opposite of the metaphor you might expect, in which drifting out to sea would be like death.

Notice that Thomas describes the good men's potential future actions – the things they won't
be able to do because they have to die – as "frail deeds." It's not clear whether the men or the
actions are weakened by age; perhaps both.

Lines 10-12
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

The speaker describes another kind of men – those who don't allow themselves to fade
quietly away into death, "Wild men" (line 10).

The kind of men who captured the world around them in their imagination and celebrated it –
"who caught and sang the sun in flight" (line 11) – only to discover that the world they
celebrated was slowly dissolving around them as friends and comrades age and die.

Here the sun represents the beauty that exists in the mortal world, and its "flight" across the
sky represents the lifespan of people living in this world.

"Flight" also suggests that it moves rapidly – our lives are just the blink of an eye.

So just when you think you're partying to celebrate birth and life, symbolized by the sunrise,
you find out that you're actually mourning death, symbolized by the sunset.
Lines 13-15
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The speaker describes the way that "Grave men" fight their impending death.

Notice the pun on "grave," which could either mean that the men are very serious, or that
they are dying.

These serious dying men realize that, even though they are weak and losing their faculty of
sight, they can still use what strength they have to rage against death.

So, even though their eyes are going blind, these men can "see," metaphorically speaking,
with an overwhelming certainty or "blinding sight," that they still have a lot of power over
the way they die, even if not the timing.

Instead of getting snuffed like candles, they can "blaze like meteors" (line 14). They're
planning to go out with a bang.
Lines 16-19
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

In the last lines of the poem, the speaker turns to addressing his father. His father is on the
verge of death, which the speaker describes as a "sad height."

We think this is probably an allusion to looking down into the Biblical valley of death; the
metaphorical mountain where the father stands is the edge of the mortal world.

The speaker begs his father to cry passionately, which will be both a blessing and a curse.
After all, the father's death is heartbreaking. But if he battles against the odds, it might also
be heroic.

The speaker ends with the two lines that are repeated throughout the poem, asking or
instructing his father not to submit to death – instead, he should rant and rave and fight it
every step of the way.
Themes of Mortality, Old Age, Transience, Wisdom and Knowledge, Family:
"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" laments the necessity and inevitability of death,
encouraging the aged to rebel against their fate. The poem suggests that we should leave this
world the way we came in – kicking and screaming, holding on to life for all we're worth.
In this poem, the speaker is exploring what it means to age and getting closer and closer to an
inevitable death, especially if the aging person becomes frail and starts to lose his or her
faculties. In order to restore power and dignity, the speaker urges the dying individual to fight
their fate and cling to life.
Transience in "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" causes the speaker a lot of anxiety. It
worries him that there are things people might have been able to do in the world if only they had
been here longer. It bothers him that the sun travels so quickly across the sky and that people live
such a short time. But even though transience is disturbing, it also creates opportunities for
beauty.
We often think of wise people as calm, cool, and collected, but in "Do Not Go Gentle into That
Good Night," wisdom means a determination to struggle. Even if the struggle isn't pretty, even if
it means ranting, raving, crying, screaming, and pounding your fists on the floor, the speaker
believes that is more dignified than simply lying down and giving in to fate.
Spoken by a son to his dying father, "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" suggests the
intensity and power of familial bonds. It also works through a reversal of roles – the son, not the
father, is giving advice, and the father, not the son, is weak and in need of encouragement and
help.
Form and Meter:
"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" is written in a very specific form called the villanelle.
Villanelles have nineteen lines divided into five three-line stanzas and a sixth stanza with four
lines. In English, villanelles tend to be written in the common metrical pattern called iambic
pentameter, which means ten syllables per line, with every other syllable stressed, starting with
the second syllable. Villanelles are required to have is an intricate rhyme scheme and two lines
that are refrains – like refrains in songs, they get repeated over and over. The rhyme scheme is
ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA, so there are only two rhymes that end all the lines.
Villanelles were originally a French type of poetry, and they only became popular in English as a
late-19th-century and early-20th-century import.