As we go throughout our lives, we have good moments and we have bad. These bad moments however, are sometimes the rock bottoms of our lives. They can also be the turning points as well. In Mary Oliver’s, “The Journey,” the theme of pushing forward, is shown throughout the poem through the character’s point of view as this person goes through this terrible part of their life. Oliver gives the reader a sense of a gloomy and miserable tone at the beginning of the poem. Throughout the reading, a journey is slowly recognized as the main point in the end. This journey, although unknown at the beginning, has an accompanied helper or pusher to the greater goal. As the readers, we do not know who or what this push or help is that is to get us to this goal. The push forward is my main focus and it gets the reader and main character to the ending conclusion.  This goal is pronounced at the end of the poem as getting out of this gloomy time and the only way out was to listen to yourself and keep pushing. This pusher, is the inner voice inside of all of us. 

When we read the words, “one day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” we get this sense of self-motivation. To get this emotion, we usually have something that triggers it like a pep talk or realization of a greater goal. The motivation that is believed to be felt by the character is used to help propel them forward in this journey.  As the narrator tells us about how they began to feel the “old tug at your ankles.” From this, we get a feeling that something or someone is trying to hold them back. Mary Oliver does an extremely good job at making us feel like we are the one in this situation by the constant use of “you.” This selection of writing also makes the reader have their own way of interpreting the meaning of the poem. But the “old tug” really sits with me for the fact that I feel as though this has happened before. The reason for this is that the word “old” has me believing that this person has had this happen in another instance. By having this as a past occurrence, we can infer that there has been an escape or a way out. The only difference this time, is that it is about truly finding them self. 

As we continue to read, we are reminded that as we keep moving forward in this journey and the reason for not stopping, is due to the fact that we “knew what we had to do.” This message plays a big role in listening to one’s self to get through these tough times. The reason for this being that the thought is always in the back of the character’s mind. Although this person is getting “bad advice” from the people around them, they continue forward by knowing what they have to do and listen to their inner voice. For the most part, we do not quite know what it is that we “have to do,” but we have an idea that it has to be something good. The only reason that is has to be good, is that the character’s goal is getting out of this runt. Knowing that this person has to do something gives a greater ending to the poem. When the “wind pried with its stiff fingers” is read, she is trying to convey to us the image that the problems in the person’s life are grasping around her to the point at which they are at their worst. Oliver describes the situation as “terrible,” being that the person going through it may feel like they are done trying and wanting to give up. As the reader, the first time I got to this point in the poem I felt like there was nowhere for the person to go. 

  As the reading continues to when was the person looking back on how the night had been a late and wild one. I took from this that the person was beginning to look back and maybe try and move on from it, which they did. When the people around us continuously throw us down emotionally and walk all over us, we must trust our inner voice to guide us to the way out and get up on our feet. Oliver shows us this by putting in the poem that the character, although hurt, kept moving “little by little” to leave these voices behind in the dust. This gave me hope that the character was actually moving with their life and starting to become somewhat happy. 

When we find out as the reader that the person has started to come out of this terrible journey that they have gone through, the “gloomy” mood is starting to disappear. Oliver says that “the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds,” which gives us as the readers the sense that this person is coming through. With the clouds getting cleared by the burning stars, we get this sense of this person as a come through. I believe that the stars are symbolizing the person’s inner voice and the clouds are all the people and bad advice that the character has had to fight through. This helps prove the point that the character is finally at the ending push, meaning that they are closer to their goal. The goal meaning getting away to where she finally may here herself again. 

Finally, as we get to the end of the poem, Oliver tells us that we start to hear a faint voice that we make out to be the characters. This voice has been with us the whole time as we have been going “deeper and deeper into the world,” showing that this voice has been motivating the character to keep moving. In order to get out of all this misery and terrible time, the character just had to keep pushing to get to this unknown goal. This thing that they had to do, which was to “save the only life we could save,” being their own life. By saving them self, we as the readers now know that the character’s inner voice led them through it all. That not only did they find the goal, they also found their meaning and their self. 

As I conclude, we can see that Mary Oliver has shown in many different parts of this poem that the character is pushed by this inner voice to get through her rough times to eventually break through and find their self. The several symbols including the stars being this inner voice and the clouds being the dark and gloomy times they have had. Oliver even states that the voice comes out in the end to prove that this person has made it out. All in all, we now can see that inner voice has led this person to the end goal which was to fight off all of the bad advice and miserable time that the person was in. 