With its memorable double refrain, Thomas’s poem urges his readers to fight death as hard as they can in order to preserve their own vitality, no matter the fact that death is inevitable. He opens with the first refrain, which he phrases as a command: “Do not go gentle into that good night” (Line 1), wherein night represents death. The second refrain restates this idea with greater emphasis by using the forceful word “Rage” (Line 3) twice in a row. The speaker advises that readers throw caution to the wind, even become violent, to keep hold of their lives while they still can.

Throughout the poem, Thomas associates cosmic sources of light with human life, emphasizing the energizing forces that the speaker wants to harness in order to preserve life. This symbolism points to the great value and joy of life, which one often doesn’t perceive until life draws to a close. Even the people without inhibitions—those “who caught and sang the sun in flight” (Line 10) and reveled in each day of existence—still have reasons to mourn and to struggle against death.

Thomas’s sequence of men—sages, saints, and madmen—all find themselves facing the inevitable fact of their demise, yet still the speaker insists that they turn away from this inevitability and delay it by focusing on their remaining life force.