In the poem “The Journey” by Mary Oliver, Oliver describes the journey of life. A generalized story of life that uses the word “you” to grab the reader and associate themselves with this already very relatable story. It uses certain repeated or very similar words or phrases to establish the elements of this story. The first of these is the phrase “you knew what you had to do” establishes the tone, purpose, and establishes who the character is right off the bat. The other is the “voices” which establishes a kind of antagonist, a resolution, and enhances other parts of the poem. These two instances and their repetition help drive the poem, give it it’s theme, and enhances its characteristics such as tone and purpose.

The poem starts off very strong with “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began,” (1-2). This gives the reader the tone of the piece, a feeling of self-determination and confidence, right from the start. The words used really give it determination, it doesn’t say you guessed or surmised, you knew. What gives it the confidence is the way it is said or the way the sentence is formed, “you had to do, and began” (2), you knew it and so started it there was no hesitation at all in the line so the reader sees that in the character as well. These first two lines really grab the reader and pull them in with the ‘you’, instantly making the reader associating themselves with the character in the poem, and the immediate start also help to establish the poems story. The next two lines go as follows “though the voices around you kept shouting” (3-4) these lines help to enhances the previous lines and establish new elements of the poem as well. The new elements help to establish an antagonist of sorts for the story in, the voices. This improves the previous lines by giving the character something to test your determination against, something to overcome. 

The voices in this passage try to drag and keep the speaker of the story down by saying phrases such as, “‘Mend my life!’ each voice cried” (10-11). These disembodied voices are trying to influence you so they can feed off of you for their own purposes. The voices don’t see you for you, they don’t care about you. The voices only project their problems onto you and beg for you to fix their own problems for them. However, in the line, “But you didn’t stop/ you knew what you had to do,” (12-13) the person the speaker is addressing determination is too strong, you continue and stay true because you have confidence in yourself. When it could have been easier for you to just choose to give in, just give yourself away until you became just another one of the disembodied voices for someone else on their journey. So once again the “voices” (4) add more meaning to “you knew what you had to do” (13) by showing the reader what it was you had to do, even with all this vagueness the reader understands the poem is trying to say. You had to get away from these shouting voices telling you to do this and that, each one saying something different, but all wanting your undivided attention. 

You did it you escaped the voices, but why? The voices help to provide one more element to this story. The initial two uses of voice were negative and antagonistic, however the third and final use of voice goes against its previous iterations. The last use of voice has a positive meaning to it.  The speaker’s character finally has escaped the voices, left them far behind. When all of a sudden, something happened, “there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own” (27-30). You knew you had to get away from all those voices constantly shouting at you bring you down, feeding off of you. But now, now you know why, it was because you needed to go out and find your own voice. You had to be your own influence in your life, you couldn’t fix those other voices problems you could only fix your own. You could only live your life not somebody else’s. This new voice gives a much larger meaning to the this story, this journey is not just a journey to get away from the voices but a journey to find your own voice. With this new meaning comes a shift in tone, rather than the very serious tone that was there cause of all the determination discussed, a lighter tone comes out at this revelation, like the sun breaking through a cloudy sky. This is the resolution to the story of “The Journey” that the contrasting last repetition of voices gives. 

These two phrases “knew what you had to do” and “voices” a long with their repetition drive the poem also give and improve its theme, tone, purpose, meanings, resolution, and more. The language of this poem like ‘you’ is used to drag the reader into the poem and make them believe they are the one in the poem. Also, the way the poem uses the word ‘voices’ because the reader can associate these voices with anything, parents, teacher, general society, or any authority figure, whomever they believe fits. However had the author use another word other than ‘voices’ the allusion would have fallen apart and it would not of worked. This makes this poem very relatable to any who reads it. While telling the story of life, the journey to adulthood, or the path to find oneself. Everyone who lives will one day go on this journey. Leaving those behind who had once influenced you and going out seeking your own voice, opinions, thoughts, experiences, influences, passions, and so on. This is a great journey, it is a very difficult task to undertake but every man, woman, and child will take it because to truly live your life must be your own. 
