Mary Oliver's poem, “The Journey” shows many similarities in how characters react to situations in the stories “The Bass, the River, and Shelia Mant” and “Through the Tunnel.” One example of this is when Oliver says that “the voices around [the characters/ kept shouting/ their bad advice” (3-5). In “The Bass, the River, and Shelia Mant” the narrator seems very uncertain of himself when trying to ask Shelia Mant out on a date. The narrator may have kept thinking that Shelia would reject him, so he talked down on himself. Thus making him lose confidence (Wetherwell 308). Jerry, in “Through the Tunnel” was trying to convince himself on whether or not to make the swim. Jerry had frightened himself by letting imagination take over “[s]upposing he