
Every day we experience thousands of different challenges, though some may seem irrelevant like choosing what to wear one day, what you will eat for breakfast, or even which path you will take to get to work or school. One thing in common is that we must make a decision to overcome any challenge large or small. Mary Oliver does a great job describing the process to overcome a larger, more intense challenge in her poem, “The Journey”. This poem expresses the effect a difficult challenge can have on oneself and how it truly is a process which can involve failure or relapse but determination and courage to succeed. Oliver says, “Determined to save the only life you could save” (92) in the last part of her poem. This quote makes the character reflect back on why they are doing what they are doing and really summarizes the events that occur. My reading of Oliver’s, “The Journey” is that a person is struggling with an addiction. In this paper, I will explain that my interpretation of “The Journey” is about overcoming an addiction. There are many addictions like watching TV, drinking caffeine, or drugs. This person’s addiction has come to the point where it is now a choice between life and death. The addiction has had an impact on the person’s mental state causing voices in their head. There is also great struggle and almost self-doubt that occurs which conflicts with their overall determination to save one’s own life. 

“Some drugs, when taken frequently for long periods of time, can actually manifest as psychotic symptoms indicative of schizophrenia…” (DualDiagnosis.org). One of the most common known symptoms of schizophrenia is hearing voices in your head. In the poem the narrator talks several times about hearing voices. The voices shout “bad advice” which mean they are compelling her to feed her addiction and fall back into her destructive state. But they also say “Mend my life” (Oliver 92) which sounds more like within herself she has the drive and want to fix her life. I think there is internal conflict on whether the person wants to stop the addiction. I believe the voices are a part of her own sub-consciousness, for example, she knows she needs to get better and determined so she can overcome this addiction to save her life but she is also addicted. An addiction means you begin to mentally and physically rely on something that is harmful to yourself. So although she needs to save her life she also is very reliant on this addiction and overcoming it is not going to be easy. Then Oliver writes that she “left them behind” (92) which sounds like progress in overcoming the challenge. She is healing from the addiction and choses to stop hearing the voices and at the end says she begins to hear a new voice that she could tell was her own. I interpret this, that as she is coming back to reality and sanity.

Like Oliver’s poem is trying to explain, every major life challenge involves some sort of struggle especially ones that involve an addiction to drugs. Oliver writes that “the whole house began to tremble” (92). The speaker was experiencing common symptoms of drug use, either a hallucination that the house was trembling like an earthquake or she herself was trembling. She also describes the stars beginning to burn what I assume to be her eyes. I think she is saying that her eyes are super sensitive to light, like a hangover or withdrawal. The phrase, “The road full of fallen branches and stones” (Oliver 92). symbolizes the path to success. It is never easy; the stress and internal voices can sometimes be like a storm causing chaos and destruction in your mind which is like the branches and stones the speaker must trek over. To cross or travel the road you either have to clean up the mess or carefully continue forward and trek over the mess. These phrases symbolize the negative forces that push her back towards digression instead of progression. 

But it is all with determination that anyone can overcome any challenge. “You knew what you had to do” (92) Oliver writes. She is saying that the person knew their path and what had to be done to say goodbye to an addiction. Determination is what gets the narrator through all these obstacles that her addiction tries to hold her back with. But she didn’t stop, the poems says, “determined to do the only thing you could do” (92), which is saying the only thing she could do was help herself. When it comes between life and death it is human instinct to fight back. She can only save her own life; her decisions affect her. Oliver repeats the word, determined, several times in the text, she wants it to linger and the reader to keep referring back to it, to convey the message that determination is what you need to overcome something, you have to really want it. 

I interpret The Journey to be about having determination to overcome an addiction. It talks about the addicted person hearing voices that don’t want her to stop. She wants her addiction because it makes her more comfortable but it is also killing her. She must beat it and with that she is determined to beat it. It is between life and death and she chose life. The voices try to hold her back but she shuts them out. She might slip up and relapse on it and fall back, as the world shakes and trembles around her. There were bumps along the road, fallen limbs were more obstacles to climb over. I think Oliver chose the title The Journey because that is exactly what overcoming a challenge is, it’s a Journey through life with struggling, determination and destination. 
