
Mary Oliver wrote a poem entitled The Journey that helped bring the idea of creating your voice to the surface. Everyone tries to influence others in their everyday life, whether it be negative or positive. Other people try to implement their own opinions and ideas by spreading rumors and persuading others in order for them to gain more people who follow one distinct voice. Society is a critical part of life now and days and because of that it makes it easier for others to fall behind and not begin to gain their own beliefs and ideas brainstorming in their mind. That is a struggle that everyone has to overcome in order to say the only thing they can save when being exposed to so many ideas, and that is creating their own voice that they are proud of to embody. In the poem that Oliver wrote, the theme of generating your own voice is very present and she appeals to this main idea by using pathos, directing it towards an audience that can feel inspired, and the style of writing she applies to her poem. 

Throughout the poem The Journey, Oliver uses pathos to appeal to her readers and bring purpose to her main idea that she is trying to imply on her poem. Her main idea is that people need to create their own voice and idea separate from the ones that are “expectable” within society. Finding your voice takes time because you need to find what inspires you to be a better person than you were today and that process takes time. Within the poem, Oliver states that “and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own…” (Oliver 27). The author is using pathos in order to bring emotion and purpose to the end of the poem. The emotion that this sentence brings to the table is that self discovery does take time because you need to create ideas in your mind that inspire you to live your life to the fullest. I’m eighteen years old and just now beginning to find my own voice that have help prove my ideas and my opinions. You always have outside influence like your parents, society, teachers, friends, government, and so much more trying to implant this image of what they believe is acceptable and in that process they are shutting down the voice that is burning to grow within your mind. Oliver even says “the stars began to burn through the sheets of the clouds, and there was a new voice…” (Oliver 25). This sentence brings an emotional fire to the table, in which she used pathos to bring this fire. The emotion and ideas that I had got out of this sentence was that as your voice and ideas begin to grow, you begin to become more passionate and heard by other voices that normal tend to not stand a chance against yours. 

The style of writing that Oliver uses in her poem helps pled her theme of finding your voice and letting your voice be heard even though others will try to shoot it down. One style of writing that she used in her poem was the context in which wrote the poem. Oliver wrote the poem in third person, and she did this because she wanted to make it more relatable to her readers in order to get her overall theme across. This helped me go into a deeper meaning with the poem because I felt as if Oliver was personally talking to me telling me that it is okay for my voice and thoughts to be heard even if others try to belittle them. There are so many scenarios in my life that so many outside voices have tried to belittle mine just so that they feel more life and power within their voice. Oliver also uses figurative language within this style of writing to help get her idea across. Oliver says “though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations…” (Oliver 14). Personification is used in order to help bring this sentence and branches of the wind to life. She gave the wind human like qualities so that it can become more obvious that outside influences are around you, whether it be in nature or with human beings, outside influences can impact a certain tone that is added to your voice. That tone can be negative or positive but it does have an impact on the voice that you create for yourself. Idioms are also used within the poem. For example, Oliver says “and you felt the old tug at your ankles…” (Oliver 8).  This idiom helps impact the theme because it helps the reader begin to feel what is being said because everyone has had a something that they wanted to get off their chest that was bringing them down. She wanted to make the poem relatable for the readers. The tug on her ankles was pulling her down and holding her back from finding her own voice within themselves. By tugging on someone you lose the strength that is needed in order to fight back sometimes until you get some words of encouragement which is what this poem is; words of encouragement to help remind her readers that sometimes getting rid of the dead weight and fight through a struggle can help bring out a voice that was hiding inside all along.  

The audience is a major component when writing a poem because you want to send a direct message to your audience and think about who they are so that your writing can appeal to them. Within the poem, Oliver writes in third person so that the poem can feel more relatable and also it feels like she is directly speaking to me as a reader. Oliver says “you” a numerous times and that makes the poem more personal and more relatable. In the very end, she ties the whole idea together that she has put in place for her audience in which she says “the only thing you could do- determined to save the only life you could save” (Oliver 34). This idea hits hard with the audience because Oliver is telling you, the reader, that in order to save other lives you need to say your own live by incorporating your own voice that can be heard and not shut out. Having your own voice is an idea that is compelling to the audience as a whole no matter what age the reader is because it takes time to find your own voice that you are confident in. The overall audience is everyone and in order to draw them in, she wrote about a topic that everyone struggles with at one point and this is a good strategy to use because then most people will be able to gain emotions when reading the poem. 

Creating your own voice, and ideas that you can be proud of can take a long time, it is a slow process.  Mary Oliver depicts this idea in a unique way that draws attention to her poem for others to read. It relates to a struggle that everyone encounters in life, whether it be when you’re an adolescent or an adult, it is a process that is important because you want to have your own separate ideas and voice compared to everyone else. Sometimes creating your own voice can help solve the internal struggle you are having with yourself because you have no idea what outside voice to listen to when you should be listening to your own. I am 18 years old, and just now finding ideas and a voice that I am proud to incorporate within my everyday life. Outside influences have tried to impact the ideas and voices within my own mind but part of the struggle was saving my own voice and silencing the others.
