
Mary Oliver uses her poem, “The Journey”, as a broad representation of life and some of the experiences one might encounter. Oliver talks directly towards the reader whenever she uses the word “you”. When she uses this one might think about his/her own life and question where he/she is in life. In, “The Journey”, Mary Oliver writes about determination and going through struggles and hardships that shape one into the person he/she wants to become. The “journey” described in “The Journey”, starts out describing what one thinks when he/she is beginning their adult lives and comes to them as a sort of realization that their life in the real world is starting. The organization of the poem starts with this realization of beginning a life, then later in life one realizes that they are doing an okay job and are on the right track, after that then one realizes exactly what needs to be done and they go for it and try to complete their life strong. 

Oliver uses many different literary devices to help with her overall message. “The voices around you kept shouting their bad advice”, this statement made by Mary Oliver uses a metaphor for the things in life that pull one down and keep them from achieving their goals (Oliver lines 3-5). The “voices” mentioned can be interpreted as one’s inner voice maybe holding one down because it poses as a risk one might take. Oliver is trying to convey the thought that even though some things may hold one back, one needs to push through these negative thoughts and achieve all that one person can with what they have. At this point in life one is beginning the struggles of adulthood and is facing the first set of hardships.

When Oliver writes, “Mend my life!”, she is using this quote in the poem to represent what thoughts someone has when they are thinking about what they have achieved so far and if it was the best that one could have done with what he/she was given (Oliver line 10). The whole poem, “The Journey”, is about the journey of life and Mary Oliver uses many literary devices to convey her many thoughts and everyone who reads this will interpret it in a different way. “Mend my life!” is a way Oliver presents the idea of struggle and stress in one’s life. Immediately after Mary Oliver writes that phrase she follows it with, “each voice cried”, this is because Oliver wants to show that through these times of hardship there are many different influential voices coming from both inside and outside (Oliver line 11). 

The next portion directly after this Oliver writes, “But you didn’t stop. You knew what you had to do,” (Oliver lines 12-13). She is provoking the thought that even in tough times and struggles one needs to push through and keep moving forward through life not letting anything get in the way of achieving a goal. “though the wind pried with its stiff fingers”, in this example, Oliver personifies the wind by giving it fingers and she uses it to represent yet another struggle, one greater than the last (Oliver lines 14-15). When she says “stiff fingers”, she is exaggerating the stress of this hardship, making it clear that this obstacle is different from any other one has experienced thus far. Many people wonder how some people can be knocked down in life so tragically and still have the motivation to get back up again. Many people also know and have experienced the feeling of being knocked down and not knowing whether or not they have the power to get back up again, but there is always something or someone to hold on to during those tough times. 

“But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn”, Oliver uses these lines to show the getting back up part of being knocked down and she shows the reader, through imagery, that one can break through and get back on their feet after hard times (Oliver lines 23-25). In these times in adulthood one can even have feelings of nostalgia from their childhood or teenage years and some wish they could go back, but others feel they lived their lives to the fullest in the time that they have had and accept the fact that they cannot go back. This is the feeling that everyone strives to obtain at the ending years of one’s life. Whether or not one has feelings of regret at the end of one’s life, he/she should come to peace with everything they have done because every decision they have made determined where they are today.

“there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own,”, this statement in The Journey represents the realization one has when one realizes that every decision made has been from one’s inner voice even when thought that those were outside influences (Oliver lines 27-29). The voice being described in these lines is recognized because all along the thing holding one back is revealed as one’s own voice and not someone else’s. Another influential group of lines in The Journey are the last four when Oliver writes, “determined to do the only thing you could do- determined to save the only life you could save” (Oliver lines 33-36). In this Oliver is attempting to convey the thought of every single person alive controlling their own destiny and everything that any person may do or any decision they make is under their control, no one else’s. 

As a final thought, Mary Oliver in her poem, “The Journey”, writes the whole poem using different literary devices such as metaphors, imagery, and personification. The thought-provoking ideas she introduces in this poem convey the reader to think about life as a whole and the journey everybody experiences through adulthood, including struggles, stressful times, and the idea of getting back up after one has been knocked down in life. This poem forces the reader to think about his/her own life and to motivate the reader to keep moving on through hard times and continue to work and muscle through everything one encounters. At the very end of the poem, Oliver writes, “determined to save the only life you could save”, she ends the poem with this statement to bury the thought of self-control over one’s life into the reader’s mind (Oliver lines 35-36).
