Mary Olivers The Journey analysis
Life is An ongoing Journey that all people must undergo. Mary Oliver causes the reader to fully experience the lifelong struggle of finding her/himself. Ultimately the common goal in this poem, and in our lives, is to show one's need to find his/herself through the countless obstacles in our way. The idea that this poem is ongoing and lacking stanza breaks can implicitly illustrate the notion that life itself is ongoing without "breaks". The view that through good and bad (obstacles), we all must go on is represented in lines 10-12,Oliver is explaining to the reader that although we will discover many hardships in life, we must move on and continue our personal journey as seen in line 12, "But you didn't stop". The lack of stanza breaks also causes the reader to move more quickly through the poem. He/she is "pulled" through the poetry because many of the sentences are short and contain only three to four words. Another cause of "pulling" through the work is that many sentences are cut off and continued on the next line. Oliver is doing this to get an intense feeling across to
Another example is in line 13, "you knew what you had to do". Two examples are lines 33-34, "determined to do/ the only thing you could do". The short line 18, is then followed by the longer line 19. People don't usually realize just what their goal of life's journey is, until they finally reach the end. An example of these "ups" is line 13, "You knew what you had to do". Oliver is quickly pulling the reader toward the end of the poem because that is where we find the reason or goal for this "journey". The idea of urgency can be seen in lines 1-4: One day you finally knew What you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting. I feel that anyone reading "The Journey" can relate to the idea of struggling to find him/herself while having others clouding the path. This poem is about having to overcome obstacles. An obvious example of this poem's "shape" is in lines 17-19, though their melancholy was terrible. I found the most significant instance of repetition in lines 33-36, determined to do the only thing you could do determined to save the only life you could save. The interchanging long and short lines can be seen throughout the entire poem. The feelings of sadness or frustration are seen in the shorter lines of the poem. The family is the constant obstacle throughout the poem. The "outside people" are the source of the problems that hold back the narrator from completing his/her journey.
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