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  4. Anthology Part 3: parents, advice and facing death

Anthology Part 3: parents, advice and facing death

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Three poems link parents and children through advice, memory and a plea at the end of life. If- (1910) is out of copyright; the other two are described in our own words.

What each poem is about

If- (Rudyard Kipling): a father figure gives advice to his son through a long chain of conditions: "If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you". He values calm, patience, honesty and balance: "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster / And treat those two impostors just the same". The whole poem builds to its reward: "you'll be a Man, my son!"
Poem at Thirty-Nine (Alice Walker): the adult speaker misses her dead father. She remembers what he taught her: how to write cheques and handle money, that telling the truth need not bring punishment, and how to cook generously. She realises she now looks and cooks like him, and imagines he would have liked the woman she has become.
Do not go gentle into that good night (Dylan Thomas): the speaker urges his dying father not to accept death quietly but to fight it. He describes wise men, good men, wild men and grave men who all resist death, then turns directly to his father.

Themes and ideas

Parents and children: Kipling's father gives advice for the future; Walker's speaker recognises her father's lessons in herself; Thomas's son reverses the roles and gives advice to his father.
Values and character: self-control (Kipling), honesty and generosity (Walker), courage and passion (Thomas).
Death and memory: Walker writes after her father's death; Thomas writes as his father faces death.
Love shown differently: calm instruction, grateful memory and desperate pleading.
Context: Kipling wrote If- in the 1890s and published it in 1910; it reflects ideals of the 'stiff upper lip'. Alice Walker is an American writer, author of The Color Purple. Dylan Thomas was a Welsh poet; his father died in 1952.

Methods and how to write about them

If-: four eight-line stanzas forming one long sentence; anaphora ('If you can...') and conditional structure that delay the reward until the final line; regular rhyme and rhythm, as steady as the self-control it praises; personification of Triumph and Disaster.
Poem at Thirty-Nine: short lines of free verse that feel personal and conversational; repetition of how much she misses her father; specific everyday memories (cheques, cooking) that make the love concrete.
Do not go gentle: a villanelle: 19 lines, five three-line stanzas and a final four-line stanza, only two rhymes, and two refrains (the title line and a line urging the father to rage against death) that keep returning, like the son's insistence. Imperatives and contrasts of light and dark.
To write well, compare form: Kipling's single sentence, Walker's loose free verse and Thomas's strict villanelle each match the speaker's feelings.
Worked example

Plan a comparison: how do Kipling and Thomas use form to present a parent and child?

  1. Thesis: both poems are advice between father and son, but the direction is reversed and the tone is different.
  2. Point 1 (ideas): Kipling's father advises calm control; Thomas's son begs his father to fight.
  3. Point 2 (form): Kipling's single conditional sentence delays the reward; Thomas's villanelle repeats two refrains like a plea.
  4. Point 3 (language): Kipling's personified Triumph and Disaster; Thomas's light and dark imagery and imperatives.
  5. Judgement: Kipling's form is measured like the man he describes; Thomas's strict, repeating form barely contains his grief.

Answer: Both poems pass advice between father and son. Kipling's one long conditional sentence is as controlled as the calm he praises, while Thomas's villanelle, with refrains that keep returning, sounds like a desperate son repeating his plea.

Key idea

If-: a father's conditions for manhood (anaphora, one sentence). Poem at Thirty-Nine: a daughter remembers and resembles her father (free verse). Do not go gentle: a son begs his dying father to fight (villanelle, two refrains).

The interactive lesson includes the diagrams for this topic.

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