mortality

Imagine yourself leading a normal, healthy life. Then, all of a sudden, one day you become bed ridden with some unknown, deadly disease. Should you accept the fact that you are dying and that it is your time to go, or should you try to fight your way to recovery even though the disease will end up killing you soon enough? William Shakespeare’s “That time of year thou mayst in me behold” and Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night” discuss this very idea. Death has been around since the beginning of time. It is a natural part of the life cycle, in which we will all experience. The big question that comes to mind is whether or not one can accept the idea of death. Shakespeare and Thomas had opposing ideas on the subject.


William Shakespeare and Dylan Thomas lived in opposite times and had different artistic outlooks on writing. William Shakespeare was alive during the mid-1500’s through the early 1600’s. He wrote plays, sonnets, poems, and narratives. He was married young and was very involved in theater. Some of his sonnets suggested that he may have had more feelings for men than for women. He died with an unknown cause in 1616.


On the other hand, Dylan Thomas was alive during the early to mid- 1900s. He wrote poems, scripts for films and movies, and narratives. Dylan had three children and was an alcoholic. He was well known for his somewhat “lyrical” writing. Although both men grew up in two completely separate worlds, each of their individual problems in life influenced their writings. Both William Shakespeare’s “That time of year thou mayst in me behold” and Dylan Thomas’s “Do not go gentle into that good night” discussed the idea of mortality in a different light. Their contrasts into the way in which people should respond to death were polar opposites. The idea of mortality is a controversial issue that has affected the way that people approach the idea. The two poems toyed with the idea that death was inevitable. Since death is inevitable, one must understand that dealing with death is inevitable, too. Death is a natural part of life and should be treated as so. When it is a person’s time to pass on, the choice of how and when they die lies with them.


Beginning with the fundamentals, William Shakespeare’s “That time of year thou mayst in me behold” and Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night” both exemplify the fact that death is a natural, reoccurring part of the life cycle. In Shakespeare’s sonnet, he uses the nature of seasons to help illustrate how death will eventually affect an individual. He describes the fall season as being delicate and beautiful but natural. Over the fall season, leaves slowly fall off of the branch one by one, until eventually one day they are all gone. At one point in time, the branches had been full of life, but the liveliness does not last forever. Shakespeare uses this seasonal metaphor to describe the effects of death. In the second part of his sonnet, he brings together the whole idea of how fall and death are interrelated. The sonnet uses words such as “expire” of “the glowing fire.” He describes the “the glowing of fire” burning away into “ashes.” What he really means is that slowly you die and you’re once liveliness fades away. In the last two lines of the sonnet, he wraps up the comparison by saying that life must eventually end.


Thomas, on the other hand, used nature as something to fight against. His villanelle format helped emphasize the main points he was trying to make. In each stanza, he describes different way in which men respond to the fact that they are dying. He repeatedly described different types of men: grave, wise, wild, and good. Each type of man handled death differently. The “grave men” go into the falling night of war. The “wise men” fought against their death even though they knew it was their time to go. The “wild men” knew their death was coming, but they did not think about it. Those men just went on their merry way. The “good men” say goodbye to all of the good they have done in their lives. Thomas wraps up the villanelle by comparing men to a father figure. He ends the villanelle in begging his dad to fight against the light and stay with him. He wants him to struggle and fight against, so that he can have more time.


The two different approaches to mortality cause confrontation to whether death should be perceived as a natural process or something to avoid. The fact of the matter is that different cultures and societies react to death differently. A very sensitive issue in people of today is idea of Euthanasia. Euthanasia is a term used to describe the process of physicians helping assist people who are dying painful deaths; the physician’s hope is to add comfort to their passing. The reason it is being discussed today is because it brings up the moral matter of whether death should be a natural process or that it should be chosen. Euthanasia’s biggest problem is the fact that not all of the people that are treated gave their consent.


The inadequacy to prove whether a Euthanasia death is morally acceptable is still around today. Unfortunately, people such as Terri Shiavo still have to deal with the consequences of this ongoing debate. Terri Shiavo was a woman from Florida who had been brain-damaged for years. She had been bed ridden for years but was still alive due to feeding tube that was inserted into her body. Her husband finally won his case in March of 2005 to take his wife off of her feeding tube. He believed that she had the right to die. However, her family believed that she would eventually recover from her vegetable state. The problem with the morality of this case is that Mrs. Shiavo had not agreed to being taken off of her life support. Shakespeare’s idea of death would have supported such an idea because he believed that death should occur naturally. Thomas would have agreed with Mrs. Shiavo’s family because he did not believe one should give into death. All we can do in such cases is hope that other individuals in certain predicaments do not have struggle with the same issues that Mrs. Shiavo had to. Death is here and is, and always will be, part of nature.


Even though both of the poems discussed the idea of mortality, they both presented issues that will never be resolved because of the fact that many people’s individual beliefs, religious beliefs, or personal ties to death will influence how they feel about the issue. Shakespeare’s sonnet describes the process of dying as something pleasant and peaceful. Thomas’ villanelle describes death as something to “rage against.” Death will continue to occur no matter how people about it. Whether death is peaceful or painful process, one should let nature takes its course and give in to the inevitable.