Do not go gentle into that good night

The classic villanelle by Dylan Thomas is a plead to his father not to go down without thinking of, doing, or saying something profound. While the poem's success demonstrate's the its success, what makes the use of villanelle successful is how the poet uses the repeated lines. The two most common lines are "do not go gentle into that good night" and "rage, rage against the dying of the light." They both appear in the first stanza, alternate appearances in the next four stanzas, then make another simultaneous appearance in thee final stanza. In the middle four, Thomas tells the stories of wise men, good men, wild men and grave men. He explains how each type of man has some sort of regret or revelation just before dying. For example:
                                                                         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 

In this stanza, Thomas states that "grave men" see things they could never see before being on their deathbeds. But using words such as "blinding" suggest intensity and even pain. 

After examining how each type of man either goes "gentle into that good night" or rages "against the dying of the night" and making them seem painful, he asks his father not do to those things, and instead to "Curse, bless, [him] now with [his] fierce tears." Thomas is asking his father to do or say something profound. So the question then arrises, why? Is he trying to create closure for himself, or support his dad while he is dying? Well, probably both, but we can never know for sure I suppose.

At first I didn't like the poem at all, but when we listened to it in class, I was better under to understand that the poem means. I think hearing the words, especially from the poet himself, makes it easier to analyze the message of the poem, and understanding the significance of the devices he or she choses to utilize.