ABSTRACT
In Dylan Thomas’s poem “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” the poet implores his dying father, and all old men, to “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” In the Sands and the Yacht Club-perhaps in all places-aging and aged people face the approach of death with both anger and acceptance, in the contexts of place, autobiography, and generations. The aging and aged rage against the deterioration of their bodies: visiting doctors, having plastic surgery, dieting, and coloring their hair. The aging look toward the aged with a comparative eye, noting how this man of 90, or this woman of 83, is and is not like me, the 70-year-old. But all of us, eventually, will go-gentle or not-into that good night.
