The Journey by Mary Oliver is a poem about the journey everyone in life takes to find his or her true self. The poem gives the message that an individual can succeed in life by listening and doing what their conscious tells them. Mary Oliver believes that one can only find their true self by going out on their own and breaking away from society’s restrictions. She explains that life is full of challenges, full of people telling you no, but that you can still succeed through adversity by being your self. 

In the very beginning of the poem, Oliver invites her audience on a journey to discover their true selves. She starts off by writing, “One day you finally knew/ what you had to do, and began, / though the voices around you/ kept shouting their bad advice” (1-5). She is telling her audience that there is a point in life when an individual has a self-realization that they must go out on their own and not listen to what other people say in order to be successful. The voices she refers to are the voices of society. People must conform to these voices in order to be considered “normal” in our society. She asks her audience to ignore these voices and to only listen to their self-conscious. By doing this an individual can succeed in finding their true self.  Later on in the poem Oliver writes, “Mend my life!”/ each voice cried / But you didn’t stop” (10-12). This is another example of Oliver telling us not to listen to other people. Although she may sound harsh by telling her audience to ignore someone asking for help, she actually has a good point. She believes that it is more important to help yourself than to help other people. I Agree with this point because if you spend all of your time helping others you will never have time to spend on succeeding yourself. And if you succeed you will be in a better position to help others anyway. But to succeed and find your true self you must pass many obstacles and hardships.

The journey to find ones true self that Mary Oliver describes in her poem, The Journey, is full of obstacles and hardships. She writes, “It was already late / enough, and a wild night, / and the road full of fallen / branches and stones” (19-22). By saying, “It was already late” (19), she means that no matter how late in life it is you still have the opportunity to find your true self. She describes the journey of finding ones true self as a road full of “fallen branches and stones” which represent obstacles and hardships. The journey gets easier the further you go down the road. She writes, “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” (23-29). In these lines, Oliver tells her audience that the further you wander from society’s voice the easier it is to find your true self. Society restricts individuals from finding their true self by creating a “social norm”. People who don’t fit in this “social norm” are frowned upon. She encourages people to ignore what society thinks of you, and to go off on your own and create your own “social norm”. When you escape society’s restrictions you will cause “the stars to burn”. This is the climax of the poem. When the stars begin to burn you will come to a self-realization where you find your true self. The clouds represent unwillingness to break away from “social norms”. The burning stars that represent the self-realization burn through the stars and allow you to get past your negative thoughts in order to find your true self. This is the part of the journey when the individual stops caring about what society thinks about his or herself and realizes that the only thing they need to worry about is themselves.   

The Journey by Mary Oliver is a poem that talks about the journey one must make to come to a self-realization where they find their true self. This journey is not an easy one. It requires one to go against society and to ignore the voices telling you what to do. It requires one to pass through obstacles and hardships. And most importantly it requires one to listen to their conscious. Once a person stops listening to others and starts listening to himself or herself they become free from restrictions made by society.  

 