3/21/2006

Domestic Tranquility: A Snappy Allusion

Enjoying the quiet of a Spring Break morning, I've been reading a bit further in Domestic Tranquility while eating breakfast. Here's a great quote:
Choosing not to go gently into that good night of the marketplace, feminists went in rage and viciously warred against the housewife who declined to join them.
This makes me laugh. If you're not familiar with the poem Do not go gentle into that good night, by Dylan Thomas, it is a poem written to his dying father. "That good night" is a euphemism for death, and in the poem he repeatedly urges his father to "rage, rage against the dying of the light." I am amused that what might be taken as a veiled compliment ("gently" and "good") or at least as tolerance ("night" IS on the negative side of connotation) is actually a vicious little insult. Read it this way. . .
Choosing not to go gently into that death of the marketplace, feminists went in rage and viciously warred against the housewife who declined to join them.
That makes me laugh.

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