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Of Overcoming Adversity In Invictus And Okonkwo Of Things Fall Apart

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The speaker of William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus” and Okonkwo of Things Fall Apart share the experience of overcoming adversity and creating their own success, despite the fact that their extreme focus upon gaining success causes them to lose parts of what makes them human. Their immense ambition results in close-mindedness and selfishness, as they do not balance their will to strive with their ability to empathize with others. In “Invictus,” the speaker claims that he is “the master of [his] fate,” and his strong diction indicates that he in unable to be moved from his mission of finding success (Henley 15). Similarly, Okonkwo “was ruled by one passion- to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved” (Achebe 15). Like the speaker of “Invictus,”
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