Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Dylan and Dickinson : A Comparative View of Death Essay
â€Å"Because I could not stop for Death†and â€Å"Do Not Go Gentle into This Good Night†are poems written by different authors in different time periods. â€Å"Because I could not stop for Death†is a poem written by Emily Dickinson in which death is personified. â€Å"Do Not Go Gentle into This Good Night†is poem written by Dylan Thomas in which confront death and the death of his father is recounted. Thomas and Dickinson use the same dominant recurring images to explore the archetypal themes of birth, time, and death.            Questioning traditional values and redefining religion was a common theme throughout the 1900s. Religion in the past offered reasons for why certain natural things occurred. Darwin developed his theories on natural selection and the public was educated. It was no longer God that chooses what happens it is nature (Conlin 782). In the past death was seen as a normal part of life, and that god is control of who and when death occurs. In â€Å"Do not go gentle into that good night,†Dylan challenges the reader to defy God, and nature and fight against death. In line 2, Dylan writes â€Å"Old age should burn and rave at the close of the day†. Dylan means that even people at the end of their life should fight for every breath. He also writes â€Å"Good men†¦Wild men†¦Grave men†– all mean should wrestle death and keep life in their grasps. Exploring death as not just God determined event but an event in which each individual can play active role in, is a common theme found throughout the 20th century in literature, poetry, and public debate.            Dickinson takes a more passive and reflective approach. Dickinson’s primary intent is not either hope for immortality or the experience of living with the knowledge of death. Both are traditional interpretations of â€Å"Because Death Could Not Stop for Me,†but certainly not the only two possible ones. Death is described by Dickinson as an unintelligent betrayer. His â€Å"kindness†and â€Å"civility†and supposed immorality are just illusions to make the narrator and every living person go quietly with death. Dickinson did not write for an audience. She was not trying to inspire or educate. After experiencing the death of several people close to her, Dickinson was grieving, angry, and confused. The narrator of the poem was not prepared for death. In line 15 – 16, â€Å"For only gossamer my gown, / My tippet only tulle,†the narrator was not dressed, wearing only underclothes or night gown, when death came for her.            The fragmented society, and deeply painful world events is also reflected in 20th century literature. Much of poetry written during this time is considered incoherent or fragmented, and certainly this Dylan Thomas poem is disjointed (Banks, par 8). While the poem does have a rhyme scheme to each verse much of the text is incomplete or missing words. The verses are written like sentences but lack the grammar and structure of a true sentence. Also in line 2, Old age should be burn and rave at close of day†, Dylan writes leaving out the definite article â€Å"the†before close. Dylan purposely removes or leaves out words. He does this to forcibly pace the reading of the poetry so that it more closely resembles human thought (Cyr, par 14). This lack of grammar and traditional forms is a quality found in 1900s literature. Authors during this time fought against the norms of society and the rules that society placed on everyone.            Modern poets love to shake, shock, and disgust the reader. They do this to spring the reader the into action, even if that action is to hate the poem and the author. They want for the audience to feel something, and feel it intensely. In â€Å"Do not go gentle into that good nightâ€Å", Dylan uses the technique of repetition of a particular line to drill his message into the minds of the audience. â€Å"Rage, rage against the dying of the light (ln 3, 6, 9 12, 19),†write Dylan Thomas to poke at the reader hoping the ensues agitation makes them wonder why, and then how. The meter of the line reminds the reader of someone knocking against their coffin – knock, knock against the coffin. (Westphal, par 4) Demanding the audience to grab at their last breath from death. 20th century authors struggle to motivate society to become active and involved in their lives, even if that motivation comes from fear and anger.  The use of rhythm and repetition can also be seen in Dickinson’s work.            Sad thoughtfulness can be found in stanza 2 and the beginning of stanza 3. The narrator describes several things while traveling with death – children playing, field of grain, and the sunset. After passing these things the narrator has a realization and comments â€Å"Or rather, be passed us; â€Å" It was the narrator and death were actually stilling still and life was moving pass them. Languor or listlessness can be seen in line 5, â€Å"we slowly drove†and â€Å"he knew no haste.† The narrator also stopped her daily activities because of death, and states â€Å"And I had put away / My labor, and my leisure too.†The tone of repressed terror is created by the following lines : line 3 â€Å"The carriage held but just ourselves†, line 14 â€Å"The dews grew quivering and chill.† Each creates the feeling of emptiness, loneliness, and the bitter cold of literal loss and physical death. The poem also has a tone of mature resignation. The narrator is not fighting death. The narrator is not shocked at his arrival or that trip they take together. If read in the right way the rhythm is slow and monotone. The sound of slow horses’ hooves hitting the grove and is almost like death march. The tone is not sad but calm, reserved, and excepting that death is an inevitable part of existing.            The philosophical issues of life are explored by both Emily Dickinson and Dylan Thomas. While decades a part in their lives they choose to explore the issues of time, death, and birth in their poetry again and again. Dickinson’s â€Å"Because I could not stop for Death†breathes life into Death creating a character that is kind in appearance but cruel in action. The emphasis of her poem is death and the feeling of dying saturates the entire prose. Whereas Thomas chooses to celebrate life and the living in his poem â€Å"Do Not Go Gentle Into This Good Night† It is only the last three lines of the poem that he addresses death at all.  Both author skillfully use the images of the death, dying, and light to convey their own opinions on the archetypal motifs of birth, death, and life. Works Citied Bianchi, Martha Dickinson, and Alfred Leete Hampson, eds. Unpublished Poems of Emily Dickinson. Boston: Little, Brown, 1936. Conlin, Joseph R. The American Past. 7th ed. Belmont: Thomson, 2004. Thomas, Dylan. â€Å"Do not go gentle into that good night.†The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas. New York: New Directions, 1953: 128. Westphal, Jonathan. â€Å"Thomas’s `Do not go gentle into that goodnight.'†The Explicator 52.2 (1994): 113-15.
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