Comparing Henley's 'Invictus And Billy Collins Forgetfulness'

“Invictus” and “Forgetfulness” Process Paper
Death is an uncomfortable and unnerving thought that the typical man or woman would love to tuck neatly away for much later in some cold corner of the mind, but sometimes when a piece of art brings such a challenging thought to the forefront of one’s mind, it not only intrigues the reader, but perforates into his or her mind and forces the reader to introspect. Two prime examples of such evocative works include William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus,” a poem about the inevitability of death, and Billy Collins’ “Forgetfulness,” a poem about the dilatory nature of human memory and death. Through the use of both first person and second person point of view respectively, intense visual imagery in “Invictus”

The poem uses purposefully vague imagery such as “night” and “the Pit” specifically to apply to various situations that most people go through. This allows a broader audience to identify with the hurdles that the narrator is describing. Along with this, the author utilizes a first-person point of view that creates a more personal tone while also allowing readers to relate more easily due to the fact that anyone can be the “I” that the poem mentions. Furthermore, the visual imagery displayed by the narrator regarding the inevitability of death also lets the reader more clearly associate with the central idea of the poem. This is seen when the narrator states “Beyond this place of wrath and tears / Looms the Horror of the shade, / And yet the menace of the years / Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.” (Henley 9 - 12). This excerpt uses first person in order to illuminate the idea that the “Horror of the shade” in question “looms” over everybody. These words lend themselves to enrich the idea that death is universal through this dark and encompassing imagery, and thus relates the work to every possible reader due to the universality in question. Through the use of a word so surrounding as “looms,” the author is illustrating that death comes to and surrounds everybody at one point, and through the inevitability of death the author is uniting all

Additionally, the second-person point of view directly places the reader into the work, making it crystal clear that any given reader is supposed to identify with the feeling of information slipping away, and thus when the author says “you kissed the the name of the nine Muses goodbye” or “even now as you memorize the order of the planets, / something else is slipping away” the reader realizes just how much information has left their mind. Also within the poem, the reader is reminded that as memory loss comes to everybody, there also comes loss of self until nothing remains. This is shown most clearly when the author writes “Whatever it is you are struggling to remember / it is not poised on the tip of your tongue, / not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen. / It has floated away down a dark mythological river / whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall, / well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those / who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a / bicycle.” (Collins 14 - 21). This word choice illustrates that once forgotten, a memory is no longer a part of oneself, and has floated away far from one’s mind.