Often in literature, authors use a speaker to show a spiritual or personality transformation among themselves. Some are very straightforward with their transformation while others hide it within literary devices such as metaphors, alliteration, and personification, such as Mary Oliver in her poem “The Journey.” The purpose of this paper is to show how Mary Oliver uses a series of literary devices to describe a transformation among the narrator in the poem “The Journey.”

As the poem begins we are introduced to what seems to be a very confused and distressed person, but we have no idea who he or she is. Many don’t know that Oliver is homophobic and was born in the United States in 1935, a time when lesbians or gays were looked down upon or seen as deviant. Although Oliver never officially names the narrator, readers can assume that the speaker is Oliver herself for this reason.  In the poem she speaks of voices that continued to shout their “bad advice” and an “old tug at your ankles.” At this point it seems very clear that the peers in her life are influencing her in a negative way. Not only are they bringing her down but they also seem to be preventing her from being the person that she truly wants to be. Therefore, this entire poem is Oliver’s struggle and journey in coming out and letting her peers know that she is a homosexual. 

“Mend my life!” cried the voices around, but the she refuses to stop for them. This expression shouted from the voices around her represents the moment in Oliver’s life that she realizes she needs to stop worrying about others and learn how to embrace who she really is and appreciate her own individuality. You can’t help the people around you if you aren’t able to help yourself and be the person you were meant to be. She mentions that she knows what she needs to do even though “the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations.” The wind in this situation is being used through personification to represent those around her that don’t believe in who she truly is. These doubters are prying at the foundation of who she wants to be because they don’t agree with her beliefs. She mentions a road “full of fallen branches and stones” on her journey. These branches and stones that have fallen are a metaphor for the challenges that Oliver will have to over come on her path to individuality. She mentions that “It was already late enough” but she isn’t referring to the time. This is showing that she has wanted to show the world her real identity for some time, but has been afraid or hasn’t had the courage to express it until this point. 

Making it this far into her journey, Oliver is “Little by little” leaving “ their voices behind.” This shows that on her path Oliver has learned to forget about, and disregard those that don’t agree with the person she wishes to express. Also, at this point Oliver has fully accepted the person that she wants to be and is happy with her individuality. This becomes clear by the word choice that she uses. In the beginning of the poem she expresses dark and gloomy words such as “bad” “melancholy” and “terrible. Slowly, as the poem progresses she starts to eliminate the negativity and incorporate positive ideas such as the metaphor “the stars began to burn” and the image of a “new voice.” Clearly the idea of telling the world the truth has been difficult for her if she has been holding it in from people for sometime, but once she is willing to embrace her true identity, “the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds.” The clouds, in this case, are the barriers that she has been hiding her true personality behind through out her life so far. Once she pulls that shield away “the stars began to burn” meaning her real identity is becoming clear to the world and she is happy to be able to show everyone who she really is whether they are accepting of her or not. 

After the stars have shown through the clouds, Oliver mentions a “new voice.” This new voice represents the new person that Oliver has become throughout her journey. No longer is she afraid to express her true feelings and personality, but rather she can embrace the person she has become; something she has been searching for a very long time. With this new voice, Oliver is able to “strode deeper and deeper into the world,” meaning the transformation that she has gone through has allowed her to appreciate the world more and allows her to go on with her life with meaning. Before she was living a fake life that wasn’t hers, holding her back from what she really wanted to do. The last two lines of the poem are “determined to save the only life you could save.” This goes back to earlier in the poem when the voices were screaming, “Mend my life!” Oliver had to ignore those voices and figure out her own problems because the only life you can save is your own.

“The Journey” was Mary Oliver’s way of expressing how she became comfortable with the person she was meant to be. In the beginning of her journey she isn’t able to express herself because of the negative influences around her. As her life goes on, she learns that the only way to be content is to come to realization with the person she is really meant to be. Even though it may be hidden within metaphors, “The Journey” describes the real life transformation that Oliver went through.  
