Finding your voice can come with distractions and many times experiencing and learning from deluded failures  The poem “The Journey” itself depicts the message of determination to succeed in finding your voice.  In Mary Oliver’s “The Journey,” imagery is used metaphorically to develop and illustrate the experiences of finding oneself own voice. 

“Though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice…. though the whole house began to tremble” (lines 3-7).  The trembling of the house solidifies that all the voices you were hearing, were overwhelming.  All of the people that were giving their advice, in this case bad advice, began to be too much and it can make you want to leave it all behind and move on into a calmer headspace.  This use of imagery signifies the beginning of what you will go through to find your voice.  Which can cause for you to experience a big adjustment to fulfill the journey.  

“And you felt the old tug, at your ankles, “Mend my life!” each voice cried” (lines 8-11).  In this instance, the voices were crying out to you for guidance on mending their own lives.  The old tug represents the things that can hold you back as you are trying to move on.  The old tug, can imply the weight of chains that you feel as you try to progress.  In which the chains can symbolize the bondage you feel because you have succumbed to those voices, which makes it harder to defy the voices you hear. 

“And the road full of fallen branches and stones” (lines 21-22).  The use of imagery in this line, illustrates how it can be hard to embark on this journey without acknowledging the failures that you may experience.  As you were going through the journey to find your voice, you ran into a road full of fallen branches and stones.  The fallen branches and stones symbolize the failed attempts of many people who may have tried their own voice.  But unfortunately, they ran into obstacles and were reared off their journey by distractions.  Oliver makes it clear to the reader that it can be very difficult to transition.  Because in order to do so you must be ready to find your voice.  It’s pretty much all or nothing.  And with the usage of the fallen branches and stones, the reader is really able to see that failure is always a possibility in stepping out of your comfort zone.  

“The stars began to burn…. through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice” (lines 25-27).  The use of imagery in this line develops an image for the reader, to better understand how you felt as you came to the moment where you have found your voice.  The stars began to burn, is used to intensify that your voice became clearer to you.  Instead of using the ‘the stars began to shine,’ the word burn has more meaning to it.  The word burn, is very significant because it illustrates how the one would finally feel because they have fulfilled what Oliver says, as what they knew they had to do.  The sheets of clouds symbolize how your headspace can be very clouded.  And the accomplishment of you finally finding your voice, puts you in a clear headspace.  Oliver intensifies the stars and clouds, to show the reader that once you have transitioned through the journey, you see the light at the end of the dark tunnel.  The tunnel you went through, seemed like it would never end and that ultimately you would become stuck.  And therefore you wouldn’t know if you ever would be able to reach the prize at the end of the tunnel.  The prize being that you have found who you are as an individual, you have found your voice.  

In Mary Oliver’s, “The Journey,” imagery is used to develop and illustrate the experience of finding oneself own voice.  Oliver uses metaphorical phrases to help the reader visualize what’s really happening in the poem.  And by utilizing those phrases, the reader can somehow relate to the journey.  Due to the fact that every individual goes through some type of journey to find who they are as a person.  Oliver hints throughout the poem, that determination is a key factor that plays into fulfilling this journey.  By replicating the phrase, for you knew what you had to do, this is how Oliver implies that determination is necessary, because you can easily get tied up with distractions that can apprehend you from becoming your own person.  
