Invictus

With his careful choice of specific language, William Ernest Henley is able to create astonishing imagery. Henley also shows the reader the suffering involved by talking about a place of wrath and tears where the only thing which appears is the “horror of the shade”. But even though the suffering is there, he keeps bringing up how he is “the master of my fate…and the captain of my soul” (lines 16-17). I am the captain of my soul” (lines 12,16), he chooses these words for a reason. He also brings up the words being “charged with punishment” (line 14) in order to emphasize the suffering. Simply by choosing the word “gods” in these lines, the author implies that he possesses some kind of supernatural strength that the gods have given him. He wants to keep the reader thinking positive, thinking about something grand and fearless.

The choice of Henley’s language helps not only create, but maintain certain imagery – one that is abundant throughout the same poem. This supernatural phenomenon, his unconquerable soul, is something which stays in the reader’s mind throughout the whole poem. This helps because as Henley uses other language, the unconquerable soul keeps ringing in the reader’s head. When Henley ends the third and fourth stanzas and he writes, “the menace of the years finds, and shall find me, unafraid…. This imagery, one of suffering but at the same time pride and courage now becomes what drives the poem. Throughout the poem he uses certain words and phrases which bring out an image of torment while at the same time keeping the idea of self respect and most important, pride.