Poets In the Hands of Death...

Death is something funny. It is something completely impending, and in this way it equalizes all men. No matter how great or strong or brave the man was in life, in death he is exactly the same as his weakest counterparts. However, death is viewed differently between people. To a young man killed in a tragic accident, death comes all to soon. To a man who has seen and lived and has been fighting the paralyzing hands of disease, death may ring in as a sweet sleep. These different perspectives of death are shown in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 and and Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.”

To Shakespeare, death is a solemn, inevitable feat that sucks the vibrancy out of a man. As the seconds tick away, death becomes more imminent. Shakespeare uses many different metaphors to portray death in his desired way. In the first quatrain, the addressee is in the last season of his life. In the sonnet, early winter is a metaphor for this encroaching time. It is damp, cold, and bare. The birds no longer sing in the trees, which seems an omen of the man's coming fate. The bitter wind shakes the winter branches just as the clutches of death weaken the man. Most of the colored leaves have fallen from the trees and in the same way, all of the color and spark has faded from the dying man's life.

The second quatrain compresses time into not an entire season, but a single night, which shows how rapidly the time is approaching. There is a personification of death as a dark night that “takes away.” Through the use of this technique, death is seen as a powerful, antagonistic force that steals time and life from all men.

The final quatrain focuses on the death of the man's youth by comparing it to the ashes of a fire. The collection of ashes symbolizes the collection of his time on earth. His past experiences used to feed his life and give him something to thrive off of, just as the ashes of a fire feed its flame. As the ashes grow, the thought of how much time the man has already lived smothers the hope for any future youth and the faint flame of life goes out.

Death hits with a much more mixed response in “Do Not Go Gentle Into The Good Night.” As the author looks around and sees men putting their fists up to death, he cries out to his father to do the same. Thomas must admit that, to some, death is seen as a much needed rest, as a sort of relief; however, this is the exact mindset that Thomas desperately fears his father will take on. He cannot face the thought of losing his father. He even begs to see his tears because they would show at least some resistance to the coming of death.

Thomas compares his father to other men, and urges him to imitate their strength against death. Even wise men, who know in their heads that it must come, do not accept death because they feel like they have not had the impact they could have. Similarly, good men see in their last moments that their attempts in life were weak and could have glowed had they put more life into their work. Because of this they fight the clutches of death. On their deathbed, wild men see that they did not live as vibrantly and they thought. Grave men see with perfect clarity that though they thought they were blind, they could have experienced life. When they realize how much they missed, they are angry at death and cry out in their hearts for more time.

Just as Thomas begs his father to fight death, he himself does the same in his poem. His attitude seems to be that, by fighting death, men can stretch out the last moments of their life. Thomas uses the “good night” as a metaphor for death. This characterization makes death a sort of weak, restful event. On the other hand, Shakespeare has a much more passive view of death. It is something inevitable that he cannot resist. By the way Shakespeare personifies death, he gives it the power of a supernatural force that is completely removed from the hands of man.