An Analysis of Three Important Messages from Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Samuel Taylor Coleridge?s ?Rime of the Ancient Mariner? is a piece known to many in some vague way or another. An elderly sailor, a ghostly ship, and the killing of an albatross are all present in many people?s minds, although they may not entirely know the whole tale. Although well-known today, the most activity ?Rime? has seen was in its beginnings. It has its fair share of praise and criticism, praise given posthumously and criticism given while Coleridge was alive. Other than criticisms on the actual text, many people claim that Coleridge borrowed the ideas of others and used them.

The Christian belief is that no matter what you do wrong or to what extent, you are always able to be forgiven. As long as you are able to realize and admit to what you've done wrong and are willing to pay for your sins and repent, you will always be forgiven in the eyes of God. In "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the mariner is willing to repent. After committing his sins against nature, he comes to realize that it is not to be taken for granted. By realizing and expressing the beauty that nature is, the mariner is granted his forgiveness in return for penance; his telling of this story.

The symbolism in the “Rhyme of the ancient mariner” is said to be an impossible representation of the Christian story of reconciliation from sin, redemption and forgiveness for that sin, but the symbolism in this poem clearly contradicts those views. The poem is one of a great sin committed against nature and the supernatural - being God - and how the wrong doer was redeemed from that sin and his journey into realigning what he had done. The Mariner was punished for his sin by the supernatural and forces of nature while he was glorified by his crew mates for his skill that was shown in killing the albatross with a crossbow. This is often true in Biblical stories and modern day where one is glorified for earthly talents and is given fame, but what they are famous for contradicts God and his law. Other aspects of Christianity are embedded in this poem as well that are easily overlooked like when the Mariner prays to some force he does not know. He is guilty for his transgression and knows what he has done is wrong although the sin was committed with ill will not intended. Lastly this poem displays a value important to Christianity, but also to all other ideologies and the is the topic of justice for crimes committed and the Christian aspect of thats once justice is served salvation is needed and redemption takes place. All of these values presented by symbolism throughout this poem all point toward the idea that the story of the Mariner was meant to serve as an example of the

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, it was written in the late 1700s. The poem’s setting starts during a wedding, an old mariner stops one of the wedding guests from going into the party to tell him a story. The mariner’s story takes place in a ship where he killed an albatross and everything started to go wrong for him and his crew. When the mariner’s story is ending he says that he has a pain to tell people about his story, this is why he stopped the wedding guest to tell him his story. The wedding guest decides not to go to the party because he became upset, he is now a “sadder” but “wiser” man. Coleridge uses many literary elements to make the story come together such as similes, personification, symbolism

The Mariner’s tale suggests a larger lesson about human life, expressing that humans are not superior to the rest of Creation and nature. Humans and all other life are equal inhabitants on planet Earth and must therefore treat each other with respect

The Rime of The Ancient Mariner is about a man, the Mariner, going from place to place telling his tale; how he comes to love and care for all things that God has graced with life through all his hardships at sea. His hardships and punishments only begin once the Mariner strikes down an albatross with his crossbow. From then on he is lost at sea with his lifeless crew as his only company. To a passer’s eye, his punishment seems a little harsh for killing a simple bird. However, it was not only a creature the Mariner had killed by his own hand, but everything it symbolized.

It’s easy to tell that the ocean is a mysterious and isolating place from all of the tragic tales we hear from sailors both real and fictional. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and an anonymous author’s “The Seafarer” are quite similar in that they both revolve around said tragic tales told by sailors. However, there seem to be more commonalities between their themes, tones, and messages rather than their seaward-bound settings. But before we can discuss these similar settings and deeper themes, we have to tackle their origins.

In order for the Mariner to be forgiven of this sin he must first admit his guilt. In lines 91 through 96 he does so by saying,

It is only when the Mariner began to bless all living things and saw beyond his own self that the Albatross fell off. He then felt a connection with nature and God, for Heaven sent down rain that refreshed the ancient Mariner and angelic spirits led him onward. He needed to change and become penitent before he could be rid of the guilt. In repenting, he was given a penance of life: whenever his heart burns within him, he must tell his tale to those who are meant to hear it.

He illustrates his belief that he does not need the good luck of the Albatross. He decides to severe his bonds with the universal cycle of life and love. Following the execution of the Albatross, the Mariner’s luck suddenly changes. He experiences the punishment that comes with the moral error of killing the Albatross. The punishment is isolation and alienation from everything but himself. Thereafter, the "Nightmare," the life in death, kills his crew. He is lost at sea, left alone in the night to suffer, and he has detached from his natural cycle. The Mariner proclaims his misery when he says, "Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! / And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony". To the Mariner, nature has become foreign. The execution of the Albatross causes physical and spiritual decay.

For reasons not specifically mentioned in the text, the mariner kills the albatross, which can be easily related to a couple of infamous Christian sins.

The lines that follow deal with death and punishment.  Part 3, describes how the sailors' "throats unslaked, with black lips baked, We could nor laugh nor wail; Through utter drought all dumb we stood!  I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, And cried, A sail! A sail! "  Then all the shipmates die "Four times fifty living men, (And I heard nor sigh nor groan) With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, They dropped down one by one."  And so the ancient mariner was "Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea!  A never a saint took pity on My soul in agony."  He sat

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, as a product of its culturally inscribed author, presents a confused Unitarian world view consistent with that of the Romantic Movement of its time. It attempts to exemplify this view within an unpredictable and often mysterious universe, and by rebuking the hegemonic ideologies held by the text’s cultural antagonists, seeks to grant the awareness of an often unreasonable world populated by its reader’s passionate persona.

Four varying viewpoints exist concerning what or who the mariner represents, the first being the superficial idea that he is simply the wise old man who imparts wisdom to the younger generations (Williams 1116). Going beyond the literal connotation, the most common and supported argument it that the mariner represents the Christian sinner. The diction chosen by Coleridge often alludes to Christianity, examples include “Christian soul”, ”God’s name”, “[i]nstead of the cross…about my neck was hung”, and “Dear Lord in Heaven” (Coleridge 1616-1632). Howard Creed believes that the mariner is symbolically a poet, due to the fact that he learns “the great truth about the world they live in” and then attempts to communicate it to others through the art of a story (221). The final possibility is that the mariner represents a mother. Repeated connection to conventionally female things like the sea, motherhood, spontaneity/irrationality, and nature begins to support this conclusion. The role of instructing the young, in this case the wedding guest whom “listens like a three years’ child” is also traditionally female, further developing the argument (Coleridge 1616). Overall, the poem is an exemplar at employing Coleridge’s idea of symbol to use the ordinary to show the transcendent, especially Christianity, yielding that the second option is the preeminent choice.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge based his narrative poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” around the sanctity of nature, especially that of the albatross, a large sea bird who was a sign of good luck to the sailors aboard the mariner’s ship. After the ancient mariner inhospitably kills their good omen, everything starts to fall apart. The mariner eventually is trapped in a solitary, never-ending penance, telling certain people his story. The people he tells however, do not appreciate the story because it points out their lack of spirituality, especially in the case of the wedding-guest. Coleridge, like Blake in “The Lamb,” relates animals and nature to Godliness.