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   jamie-wheeler Teacher
   College - Sophomore

   eNotes Editor

   In a word:  defiant.

   The speaker of the poem is pitting the power of life against the power of death as his father lays dying,  the elder ready to succumb to the force that is larger than he.

   The son, however, is still full of the "green fuse that drives the flower"  (the subject of another Thomas' poem).   The power of life is still coursing through the younger man's veins.   He can hardly believe that the vibrancy he feels could possibly wane so much that its heat could fail to overcome the coldness of death. 

   Thus, the speaker urges his father, alternately, in each stanza to:

   Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

   and to resist the frigid hand of death.  The speaker orders his patriarch (possibly out of fear that his own pulsing life-force may also one day be subject to decline) to resist with all his might, saying, over and over:

   Do not go gentle into that good night.

   Sources:

   http://www.enotes.com/go-gentle/critical-overview

   http://www.enotes.com/go-gentle/text-poem

   http://www.enotes.com/go-gentle/themes

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   Posted by jamie-wheeler on Tuesday October 21, 2008 at 7:19 PM