Analysis of the Works of Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas creatively puts together characterization, atmosphere, and narration to both write a fascinating life story. “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog” is a collection memories from Thomas’s childhood and earlier years. They are all set in Wales, which is Thomas’s homeland. The stories have a distinct Welsh feeling to them. Dylan also is very creative with his characters. They are never developed, like in a normal story, but rather just introduced. However, Thomas manages to make sense out of his stories, even though the only character that we grow a clear understanding of is Dylan. Dylan himself is the narrator. The writing style is quite liberal. Thomas freely writes what he remembers and what he observed. His work has a natural feeling to it.
The element that is noticed first when reading Thomas’s work is characterization. In “A Visit to Grandpa’s”, the two characters are Grandpa and Dylan. Grandpa introduced in a very unorthodox manner. Thomas doesn’t build up to showing us his true colors, but rather dives in and shows Grandpa’s true character. Dylan is visiting Grandpa in his country home, and is woken from his sleep by Grandpa rocking backwards and forwards in bed yelling at imaginary horses. Grandpa is already established as unusual before he even speaks. Dylan’s mother warned him that Grandpa “lit his pipe under the blankets, and had warned me to run to his help if I smelt smoke in the night”. Grandpa has a wild imagination that gets carried away at times. He is defiantly eccentric. When Dylan confronts him about his dreams, Grandpa tries to cover up for his insane behavior. He says, “Ask no questions…” and reverses the situation to Dylan. Although it is obvious to the reader that Grandpa is crazy, he will not admit it. It is known in the neighborhood that he is an eccentric person. It is almost routine that the townspeople have to go retrieve him when he runs away alone.
In “The Fight” the two main characters are Dan and Dylan. Dan is a typical teenage boy. When Dan and Dylan are together they bring out two different sides in each other. Both Dan and Dylan are creative people. Dan’s musical talent compliments Dylan’s growing passion for literature and writing. However, they also encourage a masculine pride in each other too. They admire each other’s wounds after the fight that brought them together. “I admired his bloody nose. He said that my eye was like a poached egg, only black.” Dan is daring; he picked a fight with someone he didn’t know. He brings out Dylan’s rougher side, and seems to compete and challenge Dylan too.
Dylan takes pleasure in annoying others. He aggravates the Mr. Samuels in the beginning of the story. This rebellion is also shown in art class, when the boys crack bad-mannered jokes to the teacher. The boys in the class draw pictures of naked women and seem to have a curiosity about sexuality. However, Dylan also has an artistic and romantic side like Dan. He wrote a poem, which he won an award for, and is looking for more outlets for his creativity. Dylan is introduced to a whole new world of free artistic expression and praise of what would be considered “nerdy” by other boys their same age.
“A Visit To Grandpa’s” is set during the mild Welsh summer. When Thomas says it was a “mild summer night, but curtains had flapped and branches beaten against the window”, he sets the stage for a surreal and dreamy atmosphere. Both Grandpa and Dylan are having strange dreams. They are almost connected in their dreams. It isn’t really discussed whether Dylan’s dreams are simply influenced by Grandpa shouting “gee-up!” and “Whoa!” but Dylan is also dreaming of “whips and lariats as long as serpents, and runaway coaches on mountain passes, and wide, windy gallops over cactus fields.” It would be disturbing to know that your Grandfather was suffering from what seemed to be a mental illness. This has an impact on Dylan. Beyond the humor of Grandpa’s condition, there is also an element of fear. After Grandpa is introduced as crazy, we wonder what he will do next. He is very unpredictable, which gives the story an unsettled feeling. Thomas describes this time of his life as “a world on its head”.
There are three settings in “The Fight”. First is school. This is a place where Dylan can get away with playing pranks, and where he has others around him that promote his teenage boy attitude. The second is Dylan’s house. Here his creativity is subdued. But at the third setting, which is Dan’s house, Dylan finds a liberal outlet of his thriving creativity. The atmosphere in “The Fight” is sporadic. The boys start the story as enemies; they fight like two dogs. With one sentence, Thomas changes them to be best friends. The whole story reflects the mood swings that teenagers go through. Dylan and Dan are sensitive poets one minute, and the next they play mischievous jokes on everybody around them.
Thomas uses a natural writing style in “A Visit To Grandpa’s”. He says, “We passed through the wood full of pigeons, and their wings broke the branches.” Dylan is a very observant narrator. He pays a lot of attention to his surroundings. Animal imagery is used when he says, “The floorboards had squeaked like mice.” The humor in this story is very eccentric. Grandpa makes random comments about strange things. Grandpa tells Dylan that “the parson had bought three ducks at Carmarthen Fair and made a pond for them in the center or the garden, but they waddled to the gutter under the crumbling doorsteps of the house, and swan and quacked there.” This had nothing to do with the story plot, but Thomas adds comments like this from Grandpa to illustrate his unusual and eccentric behavior. Weird behavior from Grandpa is almost expected; no one is surprised when Grandpa runs away. They all know exactly where to find him if he’s “wearing his best waistcoat”. The world that Thomas creates for us is backward and strange. He describes it as “a world on its head”. Thomas’s story is a recollection of his childhood memories from his trip to visit Grandpa. He achieves reflecting his memories from a child’s perspective. There is a feeling of youth when Thomas breaks literary rules, and writes his thoughts freely. The imaginative qualities are also very childlike.
In “The Fight” the atmosphere begins to be more of a reflection of Dylan as an adult. You can sense that there is a transition going on between Dylan as a boy and Dylan as a man. There is a poetical spirit in this story. Thomas includes actual poems in the text. He also uses poetic descriptions. “The noise of the trams past the house clattered past…into smoky London paved with poems.” This sensual language captures the state of mind that Dylan is in. He is being transformed into a sensitive poet. There is a lot of use of dialogue in “The Fight.” Thomas uses voices to create conversations between characters. The story is very auditory; you can imagine a voice for each character. The voices have no real development. Characters are introduced by a random speech they make. They are not developed. However, what they say gives them a purpose in the story.
Both “A Visit to Grandpa’s” and “The Fight” are creative stories that create an autobiography of Dylan Thomas’s life as a child. Thomas did an excellent job of putting himself in the shoes of a boy. In “A Visit to Grandpa’s” Thomas recreates his innocent younger years. Then in “The Fight” he depicts his years of transition. During this time he began to see life from his own point of view. He seemed unwilling to accept everything that was introduced to him. At times this healthy condition turned into rebellion. Dylan Tomas’s natural and visual writing style, added with his humor, make his stories pleasurable to read
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