The speaker of “Invictus” is anonymous and hence doesn’t offer much information about themself. As such, we readers have no clear sense of their age, gender, class, or racial identity. That said, the speaker is clearly someone who has suffered through adversity and survived with a strong sense of self-determination. They are someone who isn’t easily fazed by difficult and even crushing circumstances. In short, they possess an indomitable spirit. The speaker reflects this spirit throughout the poem, and most potently through their repeated use of the negative prefix un-: “unconquerable,” “unbowed,” and “unafraid” (lines 4, 8, and 12). The use of negation in these terms emphasizes the resistance the speaker has had to muster in order to defy their challenging circumstances. For many readers and critics, it has been easy to relate the poem’s speaker to Henley himself, who wrote these verses while recovering from an experimental surgery. Henley suffered from a chronic condition known as tubercular arthritis, and he had lost one of his legs to the disease when he was a teenager. He had to live with the complications of disability and disease throughout his life, but always persisted in the face of these challenges.

Though the speaker demonstrates self-confidence in adverse circumstances, their language also often suggests that they’re struggling with spiritual doubt. The speaker alludes to this struggle in the first stanza (lines 1–4):

     Out of the night that covers me,
           Black as the pit from pole to pole,
     I thank whatever gods may be
           For my unconquerable soul.

The imagery of a dark “night” conjures a sense of spiritual deprivation. To be covered in darkness means to live without the light of a divinity. Likewise, the “black . . . pit” evokes an underground prison not unlike hell. The speaker appears to be struggling with their belief in a higher power. They confirm as much with their skeptical phrase, “whatever gods may be,” which suggests a doubtful stance toward all gods, including the Christian God. The speaker’s spiritual doubt returns in the final stanza, where they declare, “It matters not how strait the gate” (line 13). The reference to a “strait . . . gate” alludes to a biblical passage where Jesus cautions his disciples that the path to salvation is narrow. But the speaker refuses to believe in such a narrow path of righteousness and instead chooses agnosticism. Yet despite their agnostic stance, the speaker retains a belief in the spiritual notion of an “unconquerable soul.” Rather than let their soul be constrained by religion, however, they will determine its fate.

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