Dogs

Dogs symbolize some of the wildness of the natural world in a form that can become part of Oliver's home, life, and family. Like all animals in Oliver's poems, the dogs she writes about know something she does not about how to live in the world. Unlike the non-domesticated animals she writes about, her dogs love her back, and bring that wildness and mystery with them back into her world.

The Ocean

Oliver's later poems return to the ocean again and again, and it generally symbolizes power and untameability. The ocean keeps moving in the direction it moves with no regard for Oliver's human concerns, and she finds peace in that fact.

Houses

Houses, in Oliver's work (and especially in "I Own A House") symbolize constraint and materialism. Houses, like the concept of owning things as a whole, represent the humanness that Oliver, in her nature...