The action represented is circular. There is no before and no after. Effort is not the beginning of liberation, but the confirmation of imprisonment. The man fights because struggle is the only form of presence granted to him in the darkness. It is the negation of the concept of "progress": energy is consumed merely to remain exactly where one is. The black background is not an environment; it is the absence of spectators and morality. There is no justice, no heroism. The scene suggests that the universe is indifferent to human effort. The light falling from above is neither divine nor salvific; it is a clinical light, serving only to make the torment visible, without offering a way out.
Synthesis: The painting describes the illusion of agency: the idea that acting (effort) holds a higher value than non-acting, when in reality both are simply different ways of awaiting the end within a closed system.