Irony

John Donne's poem Better my heart, three-personed God contains some interesting irony. The speaker is upset because, for some reason or another, he is bound to evil. Initially, I thought that he had sold his soul to the devil, but that may be a bit extreme. Rethinking the scenario, I decided that the he may simply be addicted to sin and wrongful acts, most likely because they result in some kind of pleasure for  him. Either way, the speaker is truly a prisoner, in some way or another, of evil. The irony of the situation is that in order to free himself from this prison, he says to God, "Take me to you, imprison me...." (Donne, 840). He needs to become a new kind of prisoner in order to be freed of his current prison. In other words, he needs to dedicate himself to God wholeheartedly. The speaker recognizes that it is more beneficial to have no freedom with God, than no freedom with the devil. Yet the speaker goes on to say "never shall be free" (Donne, 840) implying his doubt that he will be unbound from evil. His doubt is in fact his problem!