Why rage against a good night?

Reading Dylan Thomas

Why rage against a good night?

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.

Of these famous lines, which start Dylan Thomas’ poem about his dying father, the economist Robin Hanson asked on Twitter, “If we should rage against its coming, why is the night ‘good’?”

Robin is asking a very sensible question and it’s worth elaborating on a little. I’ll do this with a close reading of those three lines.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Firstly, we must realise that this line is showing us that the father is going gently into that good night. Thomas doesn’t want him to. At the end he says,

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.

He wants something from his dying father, some resistance. What we have to remember is that this poem expresses Thomas’ grief: he is practically remonstrating with his dying father. Death might be a good night, a peaceful sleep, he says, but how can you leave me here without so much as a murmur?

So, one important answer to Robin’s question is that the “we” who rages against death coming is not the same person as the “we” death is coming to collect. Dylan in injuncting his father—and the final lines make it seem like his father did not in fact rage against anything.

For those of us still living, seeing someone slip gently away can indeed by horrifying. Will we go gently too? Surely not… surely we will rage against the dying of the light… Surely?