In Mary Oliver’s The Journey the search for clarity is one of the major components of the poem, the subject, the reader, reaches an epiphany at the beginning of the poem. The subject in Oliver’s poem at the beginning where they have the moment where it all makes sense and they know what they have to do. This can be found on the first line when Oliver says, “One day you finally knew what you had to do” (Oliver l. 1-2). The question is now what is this epiphany?  Mary Oliver leaves the epiphany blank and open ended in her poem; The Journey, so that the reader is left to interpret what their epiphany is and how to walk their own religious path.

Before the reader can understand what an epiphany is, they need to understand what the word stands for and its religious connotations. According to Merriam Webster, an epiphany is “a revealing word or moment; a religious holiday that Christians observe where God reveals Jesus Christ to be the true Son of God to the Gentiles” (Merriam Webster).  An epiphany is a coming of moment where the person has a sudden realization and everything falls into place that previously did not fit together or make sense. Another important part to acknowledge about the definition of the word epiphany is the religious aspect of it. The Christian celebration of Epiphany is about God revealing to the world His Son Jesus Christ. This is the ultimate epiphany moment in the world’s history according to Christianity and the Bible, all the years before this have been God setting the stage for Jesus Christ to redeem us for our sins. Oliver manages to tie in these two definitions of epiphany very tightly into the paper and does it extremely well. There are strong religious references in The Journey that can tie into the second part of this definition. An example of this can be found when Oliver says phrases such as “the voices around you kept shouting bad advice” (Oliver l. 3-5), as well as “you felt the old tug at your ankles ‘mend my life!’ each voice cried” (Oliver l. 8-11). These two lines are referencing hell and the familiar temptation of sin, the voices are telling you bad advice, to sin, and the old tug at the ankles is the temptation to sin that Christianity says to try to avoid. These are just two of the examples in the poem that show Oliver’s masterful ability to subtly reference religion in her writing. 

The centerpiece of the poem The Journey by Mary Oliver is the path that the reader takes in the story. A great example of Oliver discussing the path in the poem is when she says, “it was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones” (Oliver l. 19-22). The fallen branches in this line stand for all those who fell to sin and the voices of temptation. The reader at this point in the poem is still struggling along the path in their religious journey. The voices of temptation and sin are calling out to the reader trying to get them to give in. This is comparable to the real life religious journey that many people take because the “voices” are always trying to get them to slip up. The path slowly turns from slogging through the dark to entering the light. The reader knows this because Oliver says, “little by little, as you left their voices behind the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds” (Oliver l. 23-26).  The further the reader advances down the path away from sin and temptation, i.e. the voices, the closer they get to salvation and the light. The light, the stars, burns through the dark, the clouds. The symbolism here is that sin and temptation, the clouds, fall to the good and just, the stars. The clouds in religious terminology represent hell and the stars that burn through them represent the heavens. Oliver references religion throughout the poem without outright coming out and saying it. This is because she wants the reader to critically think and come to their own conclusions. The religious undertones and references are there, but it is up to the reader to pick up on them and interpret them correctly. One thing that Oliver leaves open to interpretation though is the epiphany.

The question is why does Oliver leave the epiphany up to interpretation for the reader? Oliver does leave the religious aspect up to interpretation, however she strongly alludes to it and the reader would have to have very basic interpretation skills to not pick up on this. Why wouldn’t Oliver do the same thing for the epiphany? Unlike the religious path that shares some similarities between various religions and people, the epiphany is a very personal conclusion and experience that is much different for each individual. Everyone’s epiphany is different and unique. Oliver gives the reader the outline of a very broad religious path where there is evil that drags the reader down and the good that uplifts the reader. Every religion shares the themes of good vs evil, dark vs light. Each religious path that every person can take will be different, but there will be lots of overarching similarities. The difference is that the epiphany that each person will have along or at the end of the path will vary greatly. This is why Oliver leaves the epiphany up to interpretation to the reader. Each reader will have a similar path but a different epiphany while traveling along it. 
