Invictus Explication Essay

Written in the form of a sonnet, William Ernest Henleys poem Invictus describes the continuos competitiveness against saturnineness and sin that every human being experiences in his or her feel. Invictus is formatted in four stanzas with four lines each and every stanza serves a damp purpose then the stanzas before. Henley reveals sensation of the major themes of this poem through the wrangling My head is bloody, nevertheless unbowed (8). This line at the end of stanza both displays that everybody will endure struggles at some point in their life, still they can non let those struggles complete destroy hemselves.Each stanza not only maintains virtual(prenominal) struggles and hardships that human beings face, but they also illustrate how humans can gaiety over those hardships. For example, the very beginning of the poem starts off with Out of the nighttime that covers me/ Black as the pit from pole to pole implying that darkness and wickedness surround someones life (1-2 ). Later on in the beginning of stanzas two and three words such as cancel clutch/ horror of the shade and menace of the years also introduce a dark and depressed annotation to the poem (4,9-10).Once the gloomy tone has een presented, Henley quickly switches gears and flips the tone to one of strength and encouragement The transmutation of tones is exhibited in strong language such as l bring not winced, nor cried aloud (6). Henley formats each stanza in a way where the lector leaves with positive thoughts as he or she continues reading. All throughout the poem, every line contains either a positive or negative tone however, the order in which the lines are written change with each stanza. earlier than simply alternating between positive and negative tones with each line, Henley hanges not only the orders but also the amount of the positive and negative lines inside each stanza. For example, the first stanza contains two negatively toned lines that are followed by two positive lines, but the second stanza alternates from negative to positive. By mend the order of the lines, Henley hints at the fact that life can throw goodly or bad things at you in any order.Different from all in all other stanzas, the third stanza contains three negatively toned lines and only one positively toned line. The stanza begins Beyond this place of wrath and tears/ Looms but the Horror of the shade/ and yet the menace of the years creating an extremely dark and malicious feel to the stanza (9-11). However, the maliciousness is shown to be ineffective to this person as the menace of the years/ finds and shall find him/her unafraid (11-12).Since stanza three contains three negatively toned lines in a row, it indicates that life can become utterly overwhelming with darkness and evil, but no matter how hopeless life may seem people always have the choice to champion and be unafraid. The themes of self-reliance and survival present themselves strongly in the last stanza. Essen tially, Henleys Invictus can be summed up with one simple tilt humans control their own lives, they have been given the authority to do whatever they desire.The use of the words Master and Captain in lines 15-16 enhance this statement because both masters and captains are leaders who are attached to make their own decisions. These lasts lines ultimately prove that people are in control of in their own hands. Whether a person ends up cut out the road of triumph or defeat falls complete upon his or herself because they are the Masters of their fate/ they are the Captains of their soul (15-16).