Throughout life, we all have experiences that shape how we think, and somewhere along the way we realize what we want out of life and discover our own individuality. This process is daunting and often scary for some people, especially if your beliefs and opinions go against those of society and those around you. While most readers of Mary Oliver’s poem “The Journey” have said that she illustrates the hardships that come along with finding your own voice and individuality, a close and careful reading shows that Oliver uses imagery and sentence structure to enact the journey she describes and engage the reader through her personal point of view.

Oliver begins the poem with the sudden realization that it is time to make a change and begin the journey towards becoming an individual. She says, “One day you finally knew / what you had to do, and began, / though the voices around you / kept shouting their bad advice” (Oliver 1-5). From these lines in the poem we see some of the initial complications that come along with making a life change, especially when it involves the opinions of those around you. The “voices” shouting their bad advice is a metaphor that Oliver uses to illustrate the differing opinions that other people in your life may, but also the internal conflict that comes along with finding your own individuality. The opinions of others can often cause one to second guess their own instincts because our society is so focused on caring about what others think. Every day we are faced with the challenge of doing what we want to do as an individual versus doing what the voices of society shout at us to do. Oliver uses the descriptive metaphor of “voices” to make the reader visualize the internal conflict between following your heart or listening to others on a deeper level.

A step everyone takes when becoming an individual is learning to appreciate those who support you and create distance from those who don’t. When Oliver says, “you felt the old tug / at your ankles. / ‘Mend my life!’ / each voice cried. / But you didn’t stop” (Oliver 8-12), the strong imagery being used illustrates how there will always be people that are willing to take from you, but it is rare to find those that will give. These lines beg the question as to whether or not it is okay to be selfish sometimes. The answer to that question is absolutely, especially during times of personal growth. What people need to understand, as Mary Oliver shows here, is that in order to develop a sense of individuality, sometimes you have to put yourself first and tune out the distractions and opinions of the people and voices around you, especially those trying to inhibit your growth. The sentence structure in the majority of the first half of this poem, and specifically these few lines, is very choppy and chaotic. The way that Oliver constructed this poem not only provides imagery to help the reader visualize the struggles that come along with becoming an individual, but the short and abrupt sentences demonstrate this theme as well. 

The journey towards achieving individuality is one of the most difficult tasks we face as humans because in our society there are constantly outside forces, including family, friends, and expectations, interrupting us along the way. There will always be people trying to tell us what is right and wrong, or whether something is good or bad. However, the way that we handle these obstacles often determines the outcome. Oliver says, “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 24-29). This portion of the poem is particularly special because it emphasizes the importance of leaving behind the negative vibes and opinions of others people in your life and truly focusing on who you are without their influence. In these lines, the imagery of the stars shining through the sheets of clouds is similar to the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ metaphor. The bright stars symbolize hope and proof that the difficult journey of finding yourself and what makes you an individual is coming to a close. When looking at sentence structure again towards the end of the poem, we see that the wording is a lot smoother and the sentences flow much more nicely which contrasts the choppy sentences in the previous lines. Mary Oliver’s use of sentence structure also helps the reader understand her thought process because the poem almost gets easier to read as you go along. This structure aligns with her message that the journey towards individuality gets less complicated as you go through life.

Finding your own individuality means becoming just that; an individual. Being an individual means that you are responsible for yourself, and no one else. It is important that we appreciate the opinions of other people in our lives, but that doesn’t always mean we must agree with them. Mary Oliver demonstrates this when she says, “determined to do / the only thing you could do-- / determined to save / the only life you could save” (Oliver 33-36). When Oliver refers to ‘the only life you could save’, the life in question is that of the individual. These final lines of the poem are extremely important because they emphasize that the process of becoming an individual and finding your own voice requires one to truly focus on their needs and aspirations, not those of others around us. Though this way of thinking may sound selfish, Oliver is expressing to the reader that people are all individuals and no one is responsible for anyone’s life but their own.

Throughout this poem, Mary Oliver uses metaphorical imagery and a powerful point of view to enact the journey along the rocky pathway of discovering one’s own individuality. She describes leaving behind the voices and opinions of others in order to follow one’s heart, however, we never truly rid ourselves of these voices because they are a crucial part of what forms this individuality. Without all of the influences and experiences we have throughout life, there would be nothing unique and individual to anyone. Overall, Oliver does a great job in expressing her message by using various literary methods to engage readers in her work while also opening our eyes to what truly forms our individual personalities and characteristics.
