I think that death is a topic upon which Thomas writes,
but it is part of a larger struggle. This is a struggle to be human, to live and to
die. Thomas is writing at the time of the Great Depression and the outbreak of World
War II. If we examine this time period, it is one of worldwide bitterness. There is a
feeling of death in his work because the sensation that is around the world is that
Thanatos, the death instinct, is prevailing over Eros, the force of love. In this
wrestling and this intense battle, Thomas writes. With a world gripped in economic and
political despair, Thomas speaks of a setting where individuals are almost powerless but
for their rage, their freedom. It is this ability, to voice frustration and anger, that
comes out in his poems as a writing of death, an element that was so present in the
world in many forms at the time of Thomas' writing.
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