Inspiring Literature

Sunday, June 13, 2010

This has just been a weekend for inspiration. First the marathon yesterday, now the movie tonight. I made my usual Sunday trip to my aunt and uncle's house tonight, where we enjoyed the cinematic genius that is the movie Invictus.

I wanted to see the movie when it came out, but being the poor college student that I am (and getting poorer by the minute, it feels like) I didn't. By the time I remembered that I could see it with good conscience at the dollar theater, it had already left the dollar theater. Luckily for me, however, my aunt and uncle own the movie, and decided that tonight would be a good night to watch it, which I wholeheartedly agreed to, and not just because Matt Damon is one of the main characters.

I absolutely loved the movie. It was in turn funny and sad, not to mention extremely inspiring. But I think the story behind it is even more fascinating than the movie. Nelson Mandela must be the most extraordinary person I've heard of in a long time. He spent twenty-seven years in prison before becoming the president of South Africa, and he did not use his power to attack those who had put him behind bars. If I were him, that would have been the first thing I did! Talk about amazing forgiveness.

The other thing I really enjoyed about it was the actual poem itself, written by William Ernest Henley. It must be the English major in me, but I really like when movies have a strong literary tie-in. Here is the full text of the poem, titled "Invictus":

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.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

I just love inspiring literature, and I'm grateful for it. If literature didn't stir something inside someone somewhere, then it wouldn't have much purpose, really.