Little Boys Lost, Essay Example

Little Boys Lost: Thomas and Hudgins Confronting Death in Poetry

Introduction

The mystery of death has fascinated poets throughout humanity’s history, and for good reason. Simply, death is the great unknown.  Actually addressing it, then,  requires all the elements of living to provide contrast and exploration.  Death can be identified, basically, only by what surrounds it   This then generates poetic interpretations largely based on the poet’s character, and how the poet views life itself.  How this may take a concrete form is exemplified in Dylan Thomas’s, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” and  Andrew Hudgins’s, “Elegy For My Father, Who Is Not Dead.”   These two poems reveal interpretations that reflect the awe death inspires, but they also express a singular, and highly masculine quality; both poets resist death as occurring to their fathers as a kind of masculine competition, or challenge.  While this is more evident in Thomas, the same, nearly adolescent resistance, if more subdued, is present in Hudgins’s poem.  As men facing the deaths of fathers, each poet “takes it on” in a plainly masculine way, either through a direct and nearly violent objection to it, or a more pragmatic doubting of its form.  Beneath these approaches lies a further similarity, in that these masculine expressions do not disguise basic fear and self-interest.  In Dylan Thomas’s, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” and Andrew Hudgins’s, “Elegy For My Father, Who Is Not Dead,” two men reveal the frightened little boys behind these manly presentations of defiance and dismissal of death.

Discussion

As noted, Dylan Thomas’s poem exhorting his father to fight against death is nearly primal in its expression.  There is very little poetic ambiguity here, if any, so the component of an overt masculinity is powerfully present.  The structure of the poem also reflects what may be termed a “masculine” style; it is sparse, and it never equivocates.  It does not leave anything open to question, but rather states every thought as absolute fact.  This linear purpose of structure is also made apparent from the first line, which asserts the poem’s title as a directive addressed to the father: “Do not go gentle into that good night” (Thomas line 1).   The words are repeated three more times in the body of the poem, punctuating and framing the rationales provided.  This is emphasis of an unyielding, relentless kind, and the masculine aspect lies in the physicality of the technique.  More exactly, it is as though Thomas is pounding the words in.  In a precisely equal way, he finishes off the “framing” by repeating the active demand following the initial one: “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” (3).   This line appears four times as well, and it is worth noting that the word, “rage,” then, is expressed eight times.  In concert, the two lines reverberate in a manner that is extremely forceful, suggesting the urgency of the circumstances to Thomas.

The remaining lines of the poem have a similar passion, if one more geared to defense and explanation.  There is an order to the words, and this evokes an argument hurling its proofs, one by one, at the listener.  It is also interesting that Thomas restricts the gender of the arguments; only men are set out as examples of why death must not be welcomed, and this supports the view that the poem perceives death as a business to be addressed only by men.  Thomas then delineates by type, which seems to provide for the poet’s purpose of proving the universality of his demand.  Wise men, Thomas asserts, rage against death because it eclipses whatever power they have to create light (4-6);  good men struggle against death because it denies them the opportunity to do further good (7-9); and wild men resist death because, if they are blind to existence in their pursuits, they nonetheless have a vivid appreciation for living (10-12).   Finally, Thomas even calls on grave and dying men to support his outrage, as they must feel the burning force of life all the more at their ends (13-15).   The effect is pure, masculine emphasis on fighting the unknown simply because such an end should be fought against.

Nonetheless, this same reiteration and relentless force conveys a kind of vulnerability, and this is confirmed near the end.  Thomas directly address his father, with an open request: “Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray” (17).   Suddenly, there is a selfish component in the exhortation, and the readers sees the poet, not as a fierce warrior against death, but as a boy terrified of the loss it will create for him.  He is saying, do anything at all, as long as you find a way to survive.  Ultimately, then, and perhaps ironically, it is seen that the truly “masculine” element of Thomas’s poem lies in a boy’s terror at being abandoned by his father.  In speaking of death, in fact, Dylan Thomas says far more about the nature of men.

This same, oblique means of expressing masculinity may be seen in Andrew Hudgins’s “Elegy For My Father, Who Is Not Dead,”  although the poems differ significantly in style and approach. The title alone indicates a contrast with Thomas; there is a qualifying statement to it, as though the poet were presenting an analytical treatise.   This same, almost distanced, approach is perceived throughout the poem.  Where Thomas is relentlessly impassioned, Hudgins is calm and rationale as he contemplates the impending death of his father.  It is his father’s faith in an afterlife that puzzles the poet, even if it does not actually upset him: “He talks about the world beyond this world as though his reservations have been made” (Hudgins  lines 3-6).   The dispassionate, quizzical tone carries through completely, as the poet views the differences between his father’s attitude and his own through the metaphor of a voyage at sea.  He wonders at his father’s conviction, because it so conflicts with what he himself believes to be true about death, and he even marvels at how his father is somewhat looking forward to the new adventure death will bring (7-9).   In an equally clinical manner, Hudgins expresses the reality of this situation: “He’s ready. I am not”  (14).  The reader is left with the twin certainties of poet and father remaining in stark contrast.  The sailing metaphor here powerfully translates the sadness of the irreconcilable views, and just as mildly as Thomas’ “farewell” is furious.

Differences aside, however, there are parallels elements to the two poems strongly reinforcing a sense of a masculine unwillingness to lose a father and/or face the unknown.  With Hudgins, there is a feeling that the real loss being brought about by death is not his father’s, but his own, and not merely because the father believes in an afterlife.  This very much echoes the self-interested component of Thomas’s poem.  For example, Hudgins suggests a warm relationship with his father that has meaning for him:  “He’ll wrap me in his arms and laugh, the way he did when I arrived on earth”  (11-13).  This radically alters the meaning behind his pragmatic statement regarding not being “ready” himself, for it indicates a boy unprepared to lose his father, and it is similar in emotional impact to Thomas’s plea that his father either curse or bless him.  At the same time, there is an underlying doubt throughout the poem.  Hudgins asserts that he does not think his father is correct in anticipating an afterlife (13), but this is as far as he can go.  The great mystery of death allows for no true conviction, so no tangible enemy is present, to be either analyzed or fiercely fought.  Hudgins then, like Thomas, is really expressing the impotence of a boy coming to terms with the loss of a father.

Conclusion

On one level, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” and “Elegy For My Father, Who Is Not Dead” are remarkably similar as brief poems from sons dealing with the deaths of their fathers.  It is all the more easy, then, to note the contrasts in approach as indicating differences in feeling and meaning; Thomas is angry and forceful, while Hudgins is cool and speculative.  Such a view, however, overlooks the more visceral element uniting the two works.  In each, a masculine presence is defying death, either through overt resistance or through implacable doubt, and each is doing so to mask – in a traditionally masculine fashion – a primal fear of boys, or sons.  In Dylan Thomas’s, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” and Andrew Hudgins’s, “Elegy For My Father, Who Is Not Dead,” two poets reveal themselves as confused, frightened little boys under cover of  manly approaches of defiance and dismissal of death.