Introduction K. Moua

Everyone in their lifetime will eventually experience the feeling of death. It is a feeling that is inescapable. When I think of death I think about the death of my aunt. She was the first person that I lost, whom I really cared about. I remember her funeral like a picture in my mind. I looked to my left and my right and I can see my brothers and cousins crying. Like an uncontrollable burst, I felt the tears rolling down my eyes as well. I’ve cried before, but not like this. This type of crying was different. The last time I cried it was because my mom had just spanked me for being naughty. I told my cousin that his mother’s death was unavoidable, that she went peacefully, but was I wrong. Would it have been better if she had fought for her life, instead of giving it up? In Dylan Thomas’ poem he mentions, “Do not go gentle into that good night…Rage, Rage, against the dying of the light” (1-3).

In Thomas’ poem, he talks about the struggle against death. He describes four types of men in his poem who are the wise men, the good men, the wild men, and the grave men. In all his accounts of the men, he describes them as struggling against the forces of death. For each type of man, he gives a reason why they struggle against death. What is interesting about this is that he is telling this to his father, whom is on his deathbed. He tells his father that if these men can struggle against the forces of death, then his father too can struggle against death. Thomas then says, “Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray” (17). Here he signifies that even though he wants his father to fight against death, even he knows that one cannot escape death. He tells his father to do this one last thing for him just in case.