The Use Of Multiple Literary Elements In Henley's Invictus'

In June of 1875, William Ernest Henley was told that he was going to die due to tuberculosis. Against all odds, Henley survived, not only recovering from tuberculosis, but also avoiding amputation on both his legs. While in the infirmary, Henley was inspired to write the verses that soon became the poem Invictus. With simple form and rhyme, Invictus is a poem that demands deep analysis to determine its true meaning. When analyzing Henley’s work, one notices how the use of literary elements such as metaphor, imagery, and personification convey the poem’s central ideas: suffering, resilience, and spiritual fortitude.

Henley establishes the sense of suffering that the speaker is experiencing through the use of multiple literary devices. By beginning the poem with images of darkness and despair, Henley sets the tone for

In the first line, he writes, “Out of the night that covers me.” “Night” evokes images of the darkness and emptiness that has taken over the speaker’s life. Henley then objectifies the speaker’s suffering, by comparing it to a vast, empty “pit.” In the second stanza, Henley uses analogy to continue the description of the speaker’s suffering, by attributing animalistic qualities to the abstract concept of “circumstance.” He compares the relation between “circumstance” and the speaker to the relation between a predator and its prey. Line 6, “In the fell clutch of circumstance,” instills the image of the grip of a predator on its prey. The speaker is being held in the tight grip of a tragic circumstance, and is extremely close to death. Though cursed with a great burden, the speaker does not “wince nor cry aloud,” that is, complain vociferously about his pain,