12/18/2023 0 Comments The journey back wordThere are challenges, represented through the elements, the roads, and nighttime. Through the image of a house, a reader is taken through the ups and downs of existence. The “journey” that’s referred to in the title is that of life itself. When using this technique a poet is saying that one thing is another thing, they aren’t just similar. The entire piece is one long extended metaphor for life itself.Ī metaphor is a comparison between two unlike things that does not use “like” or “as” is also present in the text. The first, metaphor, is the most important technique in the poem. Oliver makes use of several poetic techniques in ‘ The Journey’. These include metaphor, enjambment, and alliteration. There is an example of consonance in line twenty-one with “full” and “fallen” and the repetition of the double “l”. They are connected due to their similar long “i” sound. For example, “life” and “cried” in lines ten and eleven. This means that either a vowel or consonant sound is reused within one line or multiple lines of verse. These are seen through the repetition of assonance or consonance. There are a number of examples of half or slant rhyme in the text as well. This makes sense as the entire poem is about re-centering oneself in one’s own life. The word “you” is used so many times in the text that it works as a connecting element from the beginning to the end. This technique also ensures that the focus remains on the images and their meanings.įor example, the endings of lines one and three rhyme perfectly, with the words “knew” and “you”. Oliver chose to make use of these scattered instances of rhyme in order to provide the text with some rhythmic unity, but not get bogged down by a particular structure. The lines do not follow one specific rhyme scheme, but there are moments of half or slant rhyme, as well as full rhyme at the end of, and in the middle of lines. ‘ The Journey’ by Mary Oliver is a thirty-six-line poem that is contained within one block of text. This is a true showing of strength that ends the poem on a very optimistic note. There is light ahead, and the ability to save “the only life you could save”. But, towards the end of the poem the mood and tone lighten, and the second person subject “you” strides “deeper and deeper / into the world” with determination. It is chaotic, with various symbols representing struggle, discontent, anger, and strife. When the poem begins the reader is introduced to “One day” in “your life”. The latter is one of the most poignant as it only makes itself known in the concluding lines of ‘The Journey’. The text includes themes related to the progression of time/life, strength, and renewal. The only thing they have on their mind at this point is to save their own life.ĭue to the deeply metaphorical nature of ‘The Journey,’ there are several themes a reader can investigate within Oliver’s poem. The listener moves away from the world they knew, and “deeper and deeper” into a new one. It took a moment to realize that this voice was “your own”. Once the old voice has dissipated, “you” were able to hear a new voice. Now there is no time to spare in moving into the new world. The listener had wasted enough of their life paying attention to the voices. The speaker states that it was “already late enough”. They continue to move forward and brave the uneven path that is set out before them. Voices follow this person, trying to get them to return to the past and focus on them instead. The speaker describes how this person reached a point in their life when they knew “what they had to do”. They are part of the story and are therefore asked to consider themselves within the same situation as the intended listener. The second person narration means that the reader is included in the poem. In the first lines of this piece the speaker addresses “you”. ‘ The Journey’ by Mary Oliver tells of the emotional and mental turmoil someone endured to end one unhealthy life and begin anew in a different world.
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