Themes

The main theme of the poem “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas is mortality. However, in some ways, the poem is also about old age, wisdom and family.

Mortality

The poem is clearly a rant against death, a revolt against the transient nature of life. This is clearly suggested by the refrain of the poem: “Do not go gentle into that good night,” (l. 1, l. 6, l. 12, l. 18); “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” (l. 3, l. 9, l. 15, l. 19)

The speaker tries to convince an unknown recipient of his appeal that he/she should fight for life until the last breath. In order to make his argument more compelling, the speaker gives the examples of several categories of people: “wise men” (l. 4), “good men” (l. 7), “wild men” (l. 10), “grave men” (l. 13). 

In the end, we discover the speaker’s rage against death was caused by his father being on the verge of dying.

Accepting one’s mortality and transient nature was always something hard to do. Some say that this is why religions appeared, because human beings needed to have a sense of continuity after death. In the poem as well we see tha...