Both poems focus on the topic of death, but they convey opposite messages. In "Do not go gentle into that good night," Thomas uses the refrain "Rage, rage against the dying of the light" to develop the theme "No matter what, it is important to struggle to stay alive." Yeats, on the other hand, uses parallelism throughout "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" to show that life and death are balanced. This helps develop the theme of the poem: "Because death is inevitable, it does not matter if one lives or dies."
