Personification In The Journey By Mary Oliver

As life goes on, humans will live on. Along with life comes the struggles of dealing with everyday events. These events can evoke emotions that one may not realize were there initially. The way that one deals with emotions varies between people, but on general rule of thumb, most people would rather deal with their emotions alone. Some will go down the more artistic path of expressing emotions, through poetry. Poetry can be used to illustrate a person's emotions without them openly writing about emotions. In Mary Oliver’s poem “The Journey”, she expresses the idea that every human being breaks. Being broken could mean many things, and it’s up to the reader of Oliver’s poem to decide. The poem is written so that the reader is in the point of view, creating an atmosphere in which the reader connects with the poem. Oliver conveys the idea that emotions only control people to a certain point through denotation and personification. Oliver portrays that people can take control of their feelings, but only theirs, through denotation throughout her poem. “The Journey” contains words that help the reader reach into their emotions and find themselves in those words. In lines 23-29, the words “the stars began
The personification used in “The Journey”, again, represents the reader discovering the better side of themselves. “Though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations”(14-16) Personifying the wind as the reader creates an atmosphere that makes the reader feel strong, it empowers the reader. The denotation in these lines also help create that atmosphere with words like “pried” and “stiff fingers”. The word choice helped the personification of the wind, giving it an old, exhausted, yet still kicking personality. The reader is tired and done with dealing with their depressing emotional state, but they still fight like hell to get out of