In her piece, “The Journey”, Mary Oliver uses tone, repetition and her broad target of an audience to emotionally appeal to her readers to understand the importance of doing what is best for oneself to grow as a person and obtain true happiness in their life. Each of her strategies uses pathos to be effective in achieving her purpose of the poem and making it relatable to anyone who reads it. 

Oliver maintains a serious and motivating tone throughout “The Journey”, which impacts the way the reader thinks about the context of the writing. Tone is a huge factor in the way a reader considers the work and can be the reason a writing is taken one way rather than another. “The Journey” right away establishes a serious tone in lines one and two, “One day you finally knew what you had to do,” grabbing the reader’s attention and indicating that Oliver has an extensive point she is writing to specifically get across. Oliver uses the tone to appeal to the emotional sense of her audience to make her purpose relevant and relatable to anyone. As well as a serious tone, Oliver’s tone is motivating to inspire the readers to consider where they are at in their life and what changes they may need to make. In lines 23-29, “But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own,” Oliver motivates the reader by showing the progress that is made of the character in her writing to reveal that making a change in your life is difficult but it’s often necessary to grow as a person. While this piece is heavy, Oliver is effective in her writing and indubitably attains her intent to inspire her audience and push them to contemplate what in their life may need to change. 

Oliver’s use of repetition with the phrase “you had to do,” also contributes to influencing her audience emotionally to grasp the importance of making decisions to benefit yourself. Using the phrase “you had to do” repeatedly is efficient in the way it makes the poem personal to the reader and, again, motivates them to live their life for themselves. It creates the writing to be less broad and more specific to the reader. Creating the sense of obligation is an effective use of pathos and, in a way, manipulates the audience to believe as Oliver believes. Each time the phrase is used, it holds the same meaning so that it is emphasized that you are in control of your own life and only you, no other person can make a change or decision for you. When a person is made aware that they hold a specific situation in their hands, it can usually influence them to take initiative and that’s exactly what Oliver’s purpose was meant to be. The use of repetition adds to Oliver’s objective so that even if there may not be a certain aspect someone may need to change or move on from in their life, Oliver still has the reader thinking about it and questioning it. In the last sentences of the poem, “determined to do the only thing you could do – determined to save the only life you could save” (lines 33-36) Oliver tweaks her phrase from “you had to do” to “you could do” and to “you could save.” This achieves the same effect as before but now on a deeper level. Exchanging the word “had to “could” gives the reader more of the message that there is no other choice, that changing something in your life and saving yourself is your only option. Ending the poem with these lines is successful on Oliver’s part because it leaves the reader thinking about their own situation and that was her intent. 

While “The Journey” is detailed and specific to emotions, the situation itself is so broad that it is relatable to anyone as a reader. Oliver kept this poem to be openly determined so that she could have a large variety of an audience and they could relate the poem to their own aspect of their own life. It is almost guaranteed that life is going to have challenges and obstacles one must overcome, and this piece is aimed to be relatable to any of those. Keeping the poem vast helps to be able to apply the context to more than one part of someone’s life. “The Journey” is such an effective piece because in the way that Oliver’s repetition can make the poem feel personal, it is also so broad to any situation that whoever reads it will be able to relate to it and make a self-connection. In lines three to five, “though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice” the “voices” could literally be another person trying to persuade you or indirectly be the world or society working against you. Oliver leaves the quote open for the reader to determine what those voices are in their life and how it personally affects them. Through this, you can tell she writes about this from a personal experience and feels passionate about what she wants her audience to take from reading this piece, affecting the reader in another emotional sense of feeling a connection to Oliver herself. Whether the reader is someone who is struggling to move on from the loss of a loved one or whether it’s a teenage girl battling an eating disorder because society tells her she will never be good enough, Oliver worked for this poem to speak to a wide variety of an audience and have each reader gain something from the poem. By Oliver using the strategy of pathos, keeping the writing broad was achievable since most often a person is influenced by their emotions more so than any other factor. 

Oliver could have written from another angle, but knew that for her specific purpose of motivating her audience to make a change in their life they feel is necessary or one that they know isn’t making them happy anymore, an emotional appeal would be most effective. In order to motivate the audience, Oliver had to come from the way that would stay with the reader and make them feel the way she intended them to feel. Between the tone of the poem to motivate the reader, her use of repetition to create a sense of obligation in the reader or her intention of keeping the piece broad enough to be able to relate to anyone, Oliver influences the reader to take their life in their own hands in order to achieve genuine happiness that will last. 
