
Most people, at some point in their life, hit a wall of negativity. Mary Oliver, in her poem, “The Journey,” emphasizes the trouble negativity has in the accomplishment of her goal, and later on how she pushes through it. Oliver’s purpose of writing this poem is to motivate those who may not have the overall strength to conquer all the hardship that is against them. She adopts an ardent tone in order to attract an audience who may be lost within life and to pull them into her writing. Oliver used emotion, voice, and ethos in order to strengthen her overall message of overcoming negativity. 

Oliver begins her poem by using the rhetorical strategy of emotion. Emotion is a very simple, yet complex thing, that everyone has the ability to relate to. She appeals to the audience through emotion by saying that although “the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice” (line 3 -5) and “the whole house began to tremble” (line 6 - 7) she kept pushing on and “left their voices behind” (line 24). Through these lines from the poem, she is able to install a sense of negativity, while later on bringing a sense of hope. The destructive lines are put in place by Oliver in order to show the severity of negativity. She wants the readers to understand that those around her were “tearing down her walls” to try and get to her. She uses the emotion of hope in order to motivate her audience to “save the only life you could save” (line 35 - 36); Oliver recognizes, here, that a person needs first and foremost to care for themselves. This sense of hope allowed the reader to understand that although things may have been against her, she prevailed and was still on her own path to success. By incorporating these specific lines within the poem, Oliver allows the reader to understand the difficulty that she has gone through while at the same time allowing them to understand that it was something that she had to accomplish on her own. The use of the many different emotions from Oliver forces the reader to fully analyze and comprehend what she meant by the specific line and how it affects the overall message of the poem itself.

Oliver then shifts to the rhetorical strategy of voice. She begins with a cynical voice stating, “kept shouting their bad advice” (line 4 - 5), in order to widen the eyes of the audience. She does this to show that the other voices are driven by their own self-interest. Their guidance is useless in her journey. Halfway through the poem she switches to an optimistic voice by saying “as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds” (line 24 - 26). This line shows hope and a vision of a positive future. This imagery represents how the cynical voices were blocking all that was good within her life, the stars representing the good. As she pushed through the clouding voices, the chance for a brighter future had become clearer. Oliver uses the voices as a rhetorical strategy in order to show how she felt within that certain situation. The different uses of voice from Mary Oliver not only string the entire poem together. It also intensifies the meaning of the text, allowing a deeper connection between reader and poem.

Repetition of the line “you knew what you had to do” (line 13) and how the slight changes show the poem’s growing resolve of the author accomplishing her goal. This relates to the strategy voice because the meaning of what she is saying is changing slightly throughout the duration of the poem. She begins the poem saying, “you knew what you had to do” (line 1 – 2). At this point it becomes apparent to the audience that the author is finally understanding that something must be done. She cannot keep going along the same path, she must branch out and accomplish the thing she was made to do. Halfway through this poem the line “you knew what you had to do” (line 13) is mentioned again. At this point it is the same string of words, but it has a deeper and different meaning. Within this context the line stands for her already being in the process. She first knew what she had to do, now she is acting on it. Although life may have gotten her down at points she is pushing through and striving towards her goal in life. The final place that we see the similar string “only thing you could do” (line 34) is at the end of the poem. At this point she has finally pushed past all of the negativity, and is finally on her own. She knew what she had wanted to accomplish in life and she went out and achieved that. In this poem the meaning of this simple sentence changed significantly. It began with her knowing, began to change with her acting, and then finished with her accomplishing.

Oliver closes with the final rhetorical strategy of ethos. She interests her audience by using many different types of comparisons. The use of nature to compare and describe things within a writing allows for a deeper and sometimes a clearer meaning for the reader. Nature metaphors are easy to relate to because they have universal themes; they are not so specific that a reader has trouble understanding or relating them to their own life. It allows Oliver to describe in-depth the situations that she is encountering. Within the writing, she says the road is “full of fallen branches and stones” (line 21 - 22). However, later on down the road “the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds” (line 25 - 26). She is speaking to her audience here letting them know that the path they are on in life may be difficult sometimes. However, it should not stop them from pushing through the hardship. Everyone is faced with many different challenges, but we are unable to have success without some difficulty in life. She wants to instill the sense of drive in her audience. She wants them to understand that giving up in life won’t accomplish anything.

Hardships are something that every human being goes through within their life time. Whether we decide to embrace it or run from it is what defines us as a person. Oliver within her poem wanted to put motivation into the heart of her audience. By using emotion, voice, and ethos she is able to push her readers to not give up in life, and to strive for what they want. The drive and motivation to go after what one wants, is all we need in life.