Invictus By William Ernest Henley

is unable to beat the game of death. One can rage as much as one

Once more, the poet anticipates his own death when he composes this poem. But in each of these quatrains, the speaker fails to confront the full scope of his problem: winter, in fact, is a part of a cycle; winter follows spring, and spring returns after winter just as surely. Age, on the other hand, is not a cycle; youth will not come again for the speaker. In the third quatrain, the speaker resigns himself to this fact.]

Since it does, when reading each line, there is a resilient connection that allows the reader to put together and feel for what the narrator is speaking of. As each line is metrically linked, the words are further recited in a durable voice and the poem is virtually put together, musically. In the first and second lines of the third stanza, an apostrophe, a figure of speech that directly addresses an absent person or entity, is presented, “We smile, but O great Christ, our cries to thee from tortured souls arise.”

In the first stanza, the writer uses many techniques to convey the feeling of loss, when he says,

This internal war starts the second that you set foot in this unknown word as a baby, all the way up to the last step you take to say your last goodbyes to this world. The poem begins with a life of a child in whom people around him tended to call the child “...crybaby or poor or fatty or crazy and made [the child] an alien…”(Sexton), and the child “...drank their acid and concealed it.”(Sexton) illustrating how painful it is, not react and take actions,but counseling is the best method the child seemed fit. Furthermore, courage in a person can also cause a war, in which the author shows the imagery, how the child’s “...courage was a small coal that [the child] kept swallowing.”(Sexton) and encouraging to society to make his own future. As an adult, the person endured many difficulties, such as the of enduring “...a great despair…”(Sexton), but you didn’t do it with a companion but rather “...did it alone.”(Sexton) and endured that suffering within yourself. Being an adult is not only passing a time with your loved ones and remembering the ones that sacrificed their time to make you who you are now, from your teachers to your peers to your parents, but to actually live your life the fullest and make each day worth living.Until the last moment that has been waiting since the beginning in which the death “...opens the back door...” and “...[the adult will] put on [his] carpet slippers and stride out.”(Sexton), exemplifying how all you have done, from engulfing the pain given by the society to living your whole life just to see a tear of happiness from seeing your grandchild, will not be taken with you at the moment when you really need it the

However, the poem has fluidity despite its apparent scarcity of rhyme. After examining the alteration of syllables in each line, a pattern is revealed in this poem concerning darkness. The first nine lines alternate between 8 and 6 syllables. These lines are concerned, as any narrative is, with exposition. These lines set up darkness as an internal conflict to come. The conflict intensifies in lines 10 and 11 as we are bombarded by an explosion of 8 syllables in each line. These lines present the conflict within one's own mind at its most desperate. After this climax, the syllables in the last nine lines resolve the conflict presented. In these lines, Dickinson presents us with an archetypal figure that is faced with a conflict: the “bravest” hero. These lines present the resolution in lines that alternate between 6 and 7 syllables. Just as the syllables decrease, the falling action presents us with a final insight. This insight discusses how darkness is an insurmountable entity that, like the hero, we must face to continue “straight” through “Life” (line 20).

This is expressed by the multiple examples of old men whom regret certain aspects of their lives and defy death even when they know their time is up. The speaker is urging his father to fight against old age and death. The meaning and subject of the poem influence the tone and mood. The tone is one of frustration and insistence. Thomas is slightly angry and demanding. His words are not a request, they are an order. The mood of the poem is is serious and solemn due to the poem focusing mainly on the issue of death. This mood and tone is created by words such as “burn”(2), “Grieved”(11) and “rage”(3) along with phrases such as “crying how bright”(7), “forked no lightning”(5), “near death”(13) and “fierce tears”(17). The insistent feeling is also created by the repetition of the lines “Do not go gentle into that good night”(1), and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”(3). The figurative language used also affect how the meaning, tone and mood are interpreted.

People going through a hard time can not let their struggles consume them, but they need to overcome them and get stronger. Poems “Invictus” by

Invictus is a poem about going through hard times and getting through them with passion and defiance. Henley explores the theme in the first stanza with, “Out of the night that covers me,” uses

The poem Invictus written by William Ernest Henley in 1875 describes the numerous adversities that William went through as well as his self-discovery and redefinition of his personality. The poem also talks about his response and how he, as a human, triumphed through the tribulations. The poem successfully communicates the of how strong the human spirit is through a range of poetic techniques. The last sentence in the first stanza “unconquerable soul” uses highly emotive language which expresses that his tribulations and experiences will not conquer him but instead strengthen his personality. Henley follows this concept through into the second stanza with the alliterative “Clutch of circumstances” followed by imagery “winced and cried aloud”

Because the poem is long, it won’t be quoted extensively here, but it is attached at the end of the paper for ease of reference. Instead, the paper will analyze the poetic elements in the work, stanza by stanza. First, because the poem is being read on-line, it’s not possible to say for certain that each stanza is a particular number of lines long. Each of several versions looks different on the screen; that is, there is no pattern to the number of lines in each stanza. However, the stanzas are more like paragraphs in a letter than

“Storm Warnings,” true to its literal subject matter, possesses flowy sweeping syntax created by the strategic use of commas and phrasing to draw parallels between the physical oncoming winds and the gales of life. The author crafts a long run-on sentence that spans the first stanza and carries on into the latter portion of the second to mirror the continuous flowing of windy weather and the forward motion of life. Once the speaker notices the brewing storm, they “walk from window to closed window, watching boughs strain against the sky.” In this portion of the affromented run-on sentence, alliteration, rhythm, and the repetition of words all contribute to the impression of movement. The various “w” sounds at the beginnings of words and the repetition of the word “window” create a sensation of continuously flowing forward, especially when read aloud; the comma adds a small swirling pause to the rhythm, which is then soon after resumed with the word “watching.” Just as the poem rhythmically moves forward with its long phrases connected with frequent commas, so must life carry on with each additional experience, whether it be misfortunes or joys. The elongated syntax allows all these elements to work together within sentences to highlight the similarities between physical storms and emotional struggle and to stress the inevitability of predicaments in life.

The short stanzas containing powerful imagery overwhelm the readers forcing them to imagine the oppression that the speaker went through in

This captures the frustration and the regret of having to deal with the situation in a Jeckle and Hyde sort of way, in that person one is very calm and although frustrated manages to turn to religion for help whereas in the second part of the poem they rebel against religion and it’s teachings and have corrupt thoughts and feelings.

“I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.” These wise words come from the poem “Invictus” by William Earnest Henley. Basically, this means that you control your fate, and that things don’t happen by chance, they happen because of the choices you make. You control where you go in life and how you treat others. In the film Invictus, Nelson Mandela joins forces with the South Africa rugby team in order to unite their nation, which was still racially divided due to apartheid. This inspiring film develops the theme that change is inspired by leaders who exhibit traits such as determination, selflessness, and humility. Some of the characters who demonstrate those admirable traits include Jason, Francois and Nelson Mandela.