Blog Entry #8

“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas tells a story of death and its hardship. The speaker uses many symbols in his story to describe death such as “dying of the light” which means the ending of death and “last wave” which can mean last breath of life. The author repeats various times in the poem for the reader to not go gentle into that good night which is also the title of the poem. This action symbolizes a person to make the most out of their life, not to let anyone just give up and have them make a difference in life.

                The beginning of the speaker’s poem tells the readers we should fight through death; one must not quit life so easily. In line 2 the speaker states “Old age should burn and rave at close of day” which tells the reader that older people should have a resentment to dyeing and should leave life fighting by burning and raving. The speaker then goes on to say “Though wise men at their end know dark is right…”(Stanza 2, line 4) which means that older people know death is inevitable. “Because their words had forked no lighting…” (Stanza 2, line 5) signifies that people who haven’t make much of an impact, or “lightning” in life should let go so easily and should try their best to make an impact of what’s left of their life.

                The speaker then uses the bay as a symbol of life in lines 7-9. The last wave represents death (or their last breath) and the people who are dying are now crying due to their weak impacts on helping life which is the “green bay”.

                In lines 10-12 “Good men” represents the fighters in life that strived to make a better tomorrow. They took life in and made the best of it yet just as the sun sets, life can go by like a “quick flight”. Quick flight can also represent how fast life passes by us. These good men learned that life can be taken away in a blink of an eye.

                The author’s thesis is constantly reoccurring throughout the whole poem, at the end of each stanza he repeats that one must feel anger and rage knowing that one is dying.  He states rage two times at the end of each stanza emphasizing the importance of fighting and anger knowing that one is to die soon.

                In lines 16-19 we realize why the speaker is so emotional about the fight through death, it turns out that the speakers own father is dying. The speaker’s father is crying due to him stating “fierce tears” which is both a blessing and a curse due to the hope there is that his father can fight through his death.  The speaker again repeats his focus of the poem to his father “Do not go gentle into that good night” which means do not five into death so comfortably.

                The speaker generally is telling people to make the best of life and enjoy it the best you can because at the end of the day death is inevitable. One must fight through death if they have lived through their capacity. The speaker uses imagery to describe life such as “light” and death such as
“night”. Overall it was a very emotional poem, in my opinion due to the fact that it was also involving his own personal experience with his father’s death that he is writing about.

Blog Entry #7

The archetype that I found the most "problematic" or "confusing" is the Magician. I also decided to choose this archetype as most problematic due to the fact that the magician archetype was one of my lowest scores on the Pearson-Marr archetype indicator. The magician is someone that is on the sidelines but they have a lot of power yet they do not fully use it. I found this archetype quite confusing by just reading the definition of it. The basic characteristics of this archetype can be confusing due to that fact that the magician archetype can be perceived as bad and good, the example the book gave me was of Harry Potter. Harry Potter in general is a good magician and uses his wisdom and powers in a good way to help people and there is also a bad magician such as voldemort that uses his powers in a dangerous way to harm people. The magician doesn't necessarily process to have power over the whole situation and have a different way of setting things to be right. There are also bad magicians that use their power in harmful ways; they also have ways of manipulating other which I am not so found of. An example of a magician archetype in real life would be a guru or someone like the Dalila Lama.  

Blog Entry #6

The archetype that I chose was The Caregiver. The reason I chose the caregiver archetype was because it was my one of the two highest scores I had on the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator and I feel like I relate to that archetype the most. The basic characteristics to that archetype are a giving person that loves to help people. Caregivers are kind and give onto others as they want onto themselves, but sometimes they give much more to others. Although this archetype seems like a very good characteristic to have it also can be curse to have. If one is too much of a caregiver others can easily take advantage of them and caregivers can also be too trusting and let people get away with things. Caregivers also feel accomplished when they are helping someone and feel a sense of responsibly to help others.  A good example of a caregiver in real life would be a nun or a priest. Nuns and priests live their lives in hopes of helping everyone around them, that is in fact their point of living life; to help people. They give others much more then they receive.

Blog Entry #5

Reflecting back on this semester so far, I believe I have learned a lot. I usually enjoy writing courses, but I wasn't much of a fan of poetry and literature until I began taking this course. When I learned about the true meaning behind some of these poems in was quite interesting. Looking in depth to other people's writing makes me have an open mind to everything. The most interesting topic about this course I would say is symbolism. I find it fascinating how one little word can mean so much. For example just the word red can mean anger, love, passion, rage, stop, etc. The list goes on to the different possibilities. What also interested me about this course was the supernatural theme. I enjoy watching the show The Walking Dead and watching other supernatural shows that involve zombies and vampires. I previously didn't find much interest in poems due to how difficult the comas and stanzas made it seem. But learning more about them and how easily it can be to break them down makes me want to learn and read more!