Mary Oliver’s “The Journey” is a poem that describes the struggle to find one’s own voice. The speaker in the poem tells of a battle of the character fighting to find their own voice. In the beginning, the poem discusses loud, powerful outside voices that prevent the character from finding their own. Nature plays a major role in learning the theme of this poem. Oliver uses these outside forces to describe an internal battle of the character. The speaker also uses nature to describe the discover of finding their own voice. Oliver’s layout of the poem can also be used to help further understand the theme of “The Journey” as it is different and complex. The layout consists of small, strong sentences and then ends with a long, more detailed sentence. The layout and references of nature to transition an internal battle are used in “The Journey” to help the audience develop the theme of the poem of finding one’s own voice. 

Oliver uses nature to describe a battle going on inside the mind of the character. In the poem, it states, “You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers,” (Oliver, 13-15) which shows how the external forces are pushing against the character on their journey. The choice of words helps the reader understand what a struggle it can be to move beyond barriers in life.  The “fingers” are prying at theation of the person and holding the person back from progressing through their journey.  The personification of the wind is used to show how outside forces behind the poem are forceful and influential. Using personification of the wind helps to create a visual for the reader of how powerful external forces can influence you. The other voices are trying to prevent the character from finding their own and fights against the character. But they continue to push forward through the toughness. The use of nature in the poem continues as Oliver describes the journey as, “A wild night, and road full of fallen branches and stones” (Oliver, 21-22).  By using nature to describe an internal struggle, it helps create an image of how difficult it can be to find your own voice in life.  The speaker uses objects like branches and stones to showcase obstacles the character must go through. Much like branches and stones can cause a person to stumble, listening to others can also result in a person stumbling along their journey. 

The author then uses nature again in the revelation of finding your own voice. She says, “The stars began to burn through the sheet of clouds, and there was a new voice” (Oliver, 25-26).  By using the forces of nature to describe the finding of your voice, it helps the audience understand how the character now feels at the end of this long journey. The “clouds” mentioned in the poem describe how the character was blocked from having a clear vision. Then, Oliver using the burning of the “stars” as a sign of breaking through and finding the light. “Burning” is an interesting word choice as we typically think of a star shining, but, in this instance, Oliver uses the word “burn.” It gives the reader a sense of action taken as opposed to being passive.  The choice of words also creates a visual of going from darkness to light and contrasts the night and darkness described at the beginning of the poem. The character begins to feel comfort and sense of individuality as they break away from the other voices and find their own.

       Lastly, the author is purposeful in choosing the layout of the poem to help further drive home the theme. Although the poems are actually written in sentence form, each line of the poem is a portion of the sentence specifically chose to break at specific points. These breaking points cause the reader to pause and reflect on the words used. For example, the phrase, “kept shouting” (Oliver, 4) is on its own line. This makes the reader think about how powerful the distractions are that keep you from hearing your own voice. The last stanza begins with the phrase, “But little by little” (Oliver, 23). This phrase separated out lets the reader know that this was truly a journey, and not something that happened all at once. Another example of using the layout of the poem to make the reader stop and think is when the phrase, “But you didn’t stop” (Oliver, 12) was used at the end of the stanza on its own line. Although the sentence is short, it is very powerful. The voices and distractions are creating a struggle for the character, but Oliver puts this simple, but strong sentence to show the determination it takes to overcome those who hold you back. The final sentence is elongating and shows the revelation of the character finding their own voice. In the beginning of the poem, there were multiple voices, therefore, lead to multiple sentences. At the end of the poem, there was only one voice, therefore there is one sentence which shows the reasoning behind Oliver’s awkward layout for her poem. 

Oliver’s consistent reference to nature to describe the battle the character is going through is the driving force of the theme finding one’s own voice. The comparison of the journey to the forces of nature helps the audience understand how challenging this experience for the character as they slowly break away from the distracting voices. The author was purposeful in choosing the layout to help the reader to pause and reflect as the poem is read. Oliver chose to use choppy, short sentences in the beginning when there were multiple voices and distractions while at the end of the poem, there was one long sentence full of detail when only one voice was present, the character’s voice they had found. “The Journey” by Mary Oliver uses simple yet strong language, a complex layout of her poem, and references of nature to help convey the theme of finding one’s own voice by narrating the journey of a person struggling to move away from the other voices. 
