Death Perspectives from Dylan Thomas's A Refusal To Mourn The Death By Fire Of A Child In London
Death. Even the mere suggestion of the word is able to conjure up visions of dark, grisly impressions and cold, somber moods. The subject of death is neither an appropriate nor amusing subject of conversation among people because of the ill feelings of tragedy and mourning so often associated with it. Through his poetry, Thomas attempts to reverse the common opinions of society on death by using diction and comparisons that offer a new and contented perspective of death and reverences it as an integral, inescapable part of the natural cycle. Dylan Thomas begins "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London" by setting up a motif of atavism that prevails throughout the rest of the poem. He uses terms that refer to creation as he describes a darkness as "mankind-making," "bird-" "beast-" and "flower-fathering," and "all-humbling." This darkness is represents the nothingness from which the world evolved, and we also know it is a great power by the descriptor "all-humbling." According to this first stanza the same darkness will also mark the end of the world when the end of the world when the "last light" breaks and the seas are silenced. This stanza establishes a cycle of darkness before creation and
Thomas's word choice is crucial as he describes the death cycle in order to compress as much meaning into as few words as possible, because it is his words that allow the reader to comprehend death as a religious as well as natural and inescapable experience. The use of the words "round" and "again" in Line 7 confirm the fact that the poet is entering a cycle from which he initially came, and also serves to compare the death cycle to a bead of water and the water cycle. A bead of water by no means can excuse itself from the boundless revolutions of shape from water to vapor to water. By associating death to a cycle that is so fundamental in nature and necessary for every form of life on the earth, the reader may conclude that death is also an equally endless and inescapable cycle, and that no soul may escape as the cosmic cycle transforms the person from flesh to dust. Thomas not only believes that death is inescapable and ultimate, but he also describes it in such a way that it is not the tragic ending that society considers it. In the poem, Thomas refuses to "murder the mankind" or the humanity of her going with the "grave truth" or certainty of her death, as the child has escaped the wickedness and corruption of the world that caused her fate. Thomas's refusal to "blaspheme" nature's course because the child's death has brought release and peace, and it would be pessimistic and meaningless to consider i
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Approximate Word count = 964
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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