17 pages • 34 minutes read
The Journey
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Themes
Following Internal Knowledge
The central theme of “The Journey” is discovering your intended path by listening to your inner wisdom, then traveling along this path, facing obstacles and fighting the urge to turn back. Although the speaker uses past tense, the reflection highlights how internal knowledge can help people as they progress along a newly chosen path. In the poem, “you” learned to hear your own voice and be alone with yourself, and the journey to save yourself was something you were capable of and intended to do. Similarly, all people can persevere along a new path if they can ignore outside influence and listen to their own intuition.
Oliver introduces the importance of internal knowledge in the first line, repeating the word “knew” (Lines 1, 13). The impetus of the journey described in the poem is the knowledge that focusing on oneself is crucial. It takes time to arrive at this knowledge: “One day you finally knew” (Line 1). The temporal adverb “finally” indicates that people look for this type of knowledge for long periods of time before ultimately comprehending their inner truth. In the poem, this revelation comes after many days of being unable to understand the journey. After addressing the distractions come from others, Oliver reiterates: “You knew what you had to do” (Line 13). The diction of “had” indicates that people must heed their internal voices and start the journeys that are truly meant for them.
Once the journey starts, a person’s ability to listen to, and be with, themselves will improve. Leaving others’ “voices behind” (Line 24), lets “a new voice / which you slowly / [recognize] as your own” (Lines 27-29) to shine through. When a person finally prioritizes their own thoughts, they can delineate what ideas are simply parroting others, and what ideas originate within themselves. This process is not a fast one; the adverb “slowly” indicates that a person is not immediately comfortable hearing and feeling their true voice. Despite this, the speaker reiterates how the voice “[keeps] you company” (Line 30) along the journey, showing that a person’s internal knowledge is there all along, obscured by external pressures.
Oliver closes the poem by asserting that following one’s inner voice is the singular goal that a person can truly achieve by themselves. Collectively in society, we cannot fix other people, but we can rescue ourselves. Discovering and aligning with internal wisdom is the “only thing” (Line 34) that people have control over. It is a person’s own responsibility to fix and “mend” (Line 10) themselves, and they must trust that they have the capacity to do so.
Escaping Other People’s Chaos
The titular journey in Oliver’s poem is one of self-discovery and self-healing. As the speaker emphasizes, a person must distance themselves from interpersonal drama to successfully navigate this path. People who are aggressive, incorrect, and demanding can keep others from seeing what is important in life. Those chaotic personalities are a force to be reckoned with and their psychological damage can remain after their physical presence is gone.
The poem shows that voices left behind are negative influences. They will “[keep] shouting” (Line 4) but listening closely will reveal that they are giving “bad advice” (Line 5). People who speak with raised voices and make poor recommendations cause chaos in other people’s lives. Trying to appease them will result in stress, as their “melancholy / [is] terrible” (Lines 17-18). When they are present, it is easy to get lost in their sorrow, which is an unpleasant experience and should be avoided by continuing on an individual path.
After moving beyond the desperate voices, pieces of their chaos remain. They create “a wild night, / […] [a] road full of fallen / branches and stones” (Lines 20-22). This creates an environment full of debris that is not peaceful, and as such the poem reveals a temporal shift: The opening of the poem is the beginning of “[o]ne day” (Line 1). Around halfway through the poem, “[i]t was already late” (Line 19). Thus, a journey of self-discovery takes time, and this time can put space between a person and the voices that are chasing them. With time, a person can move beyond the detritus of their drama, they just have to first be far enough away that others can’t “tug / at [their] ankles” (Lines 8-9)—far enough away that outside influences can’t pull them away from their journey. Oliver focuses on figurative debris and psychological distances to show the importance of disengaging from aggressive influences, freeing oneself from relentless demands, and sidestepping the lingering effects of others’ actions. In the end, distancing oneself from the ongoing repercussions of other people’s chaos is the only way for the journey to be successful.
Movement Between Artifice and Nature
In addition to the movement between day and night, the “you” of the poem moves between human constructions and the open sky. The aggressive voices are in, and/or part of, a “house” (Line 6). This structure represents the rules and mores that humans create. Oliver posits that it is something that a person must escape. The “very foundations” (Line 16) of the house are pulled at by chaotic people who are tearing at the roots of the structure, which can represent both society and family. Exiled from a chaotic and crumbling home, a person must move beyond the destructive reach of other people and venture out into nature.
Beyond the reach of the voices, the house disappears. The middle of the poem includes reference to a celestial realm that is not created by humans. Instead of a structure that is coming apart, there is focus on the “stars” (Line 25), “clouds” (26), and “the world” (Line 32). Here, being aligned with nature is the beginning of being aligned with internal knowledge. The “deeper and deeper” (Line 31) that a person journeys into nature, the deeper their journey will be into themselves. The external world of nature is conducive to healing, while human-made structures can keep a person trapped in chaos.
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