Fight for Your Life

"Rage, Rage, against the dying of the light."
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

In this poem, the speaker discusses how different people react to dying, or "the dying of the light". The common theme, however, is that everyone fights death in one way or another. They don't want it to come, and are angered by its arrival, so fight back. The speaker, in the end, urges his own father to fight death as most men do. The speaker obviously doesn't want his father to die, and is therefore trying to get him to put it off. This reminds me of a scene from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movie. In it, Tibby pleads with her friend Bailey to continue fighting cancer, to not give up but keep going. Bailey tells Tibby that it is alright, comforting her. It seems to me that that is often the case- the dying seem to lend their mental strength to the living, because those are the people who need it most. I imagine the father, in this situation, may be close to accepting his death, which is why the son feels the need to write the poem. I almost sense the same feelings conveyed as in Elegy for My Father, Who Is Not Dead, even though they may be conveyed in completely different ways. It is very hard to lose someone you love, even though you know they will be happier in heaven.