Although the poem is written in first person, the speaker doesn’t offer any autobiographical information regarding age, gender, occupation, or culture; instead, the speaker exists as an archetype of a universal human experience. They exhibit a profound loneliness and introspection, and a need to escape the source of their loneliness. The tragedy of the character is, of course, that their loneliness comes from within — it is inescapable. By the end of the poem, the speaker is forced to acknowledge their stagnancy and the darkness within themself.