Suffering

One of the principal themes in this poem is the experience of suffering. Although the poem does not ultimately conclude on the side of pessimism, the poem devotes a significant portion of its text to depicting what it is like to experience suffering, both physically and emotionally.

Henley’s depiction of suffering begins in the first stanza, with the image of a “black” “pit” (2). This is a familiar image to religious readers. Hell is often described as a pit, based on the Biblical image of the pit of Sheol. Historically, this pit was a place where the dead were buried outside of prehistoric Jerusalem, but Sheol has since been reinterpreted as a reference to Hell. However, Henley’s vision of suffering soon becomes much more physical and personal than this metaphorical reference.

He writes, for instance, of the “fell clutch of circumstance” (5). This image (fell, in...