Module 15 Assignment: Hagar and the Ancient Mariner – Alison Heuchan
Mariner Questions:
1. In lines 10-11, how is the Ancient Mariner portrayed?
In lines 10-11, the Ancient Mariner is called a “grey-beard lune”. This portrays him as old and crazy.
2. What kind of symbolism surrounds the white Albatross? (see 63-66)
The white Albatross is likened to being “a Christian soul”, which caused the sailors to hail “it in God’s name”. The Albatross is acting as a symbol of Christian morality. It represents serenity and faith.
3. How does the Mariner view the Albatross as an omen? (67-70)
The Mariner views the Albatross as an omen because it seemed to cause the ice to “split with a thunder-fit” and a “good south wind”, both of which allowed the Mariner’s
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The physical stone angel “used to stand” “above the town, on the hill brow”. The angel was purchased by Hagar’s father “in pride to mark” her mother’s “bones”. The angel “was doubly blind, not only stone but unendowed with even a pretense of sight. Whoever carved her had left the eyeballs blank”. (p. 3) The grandeur of the stone angel is demonstrative of the pride that is held within Hagar’s family. At the same time, its lack of eyes is symbolic of Hagar’s blindness towards the emotions of others. It hints towards her inability to …show more content…
However, Hagar pushes her away, and due to pride, resolves that she will not “cry in front of strangers”. (p. 242) Just as she let her pride prevent her from doing so many things in life, she lets it prevent her from shedding tears for her dead son. She will not accept the comfort of others for fear of appearing weak. Even when she is finally alone, she still cannot cry. She feels as though she has been “transformed to stone”. (p. 243) She is afraid to feel guilt over John’s death, and so chooses to block out all emotions and feel nothing at all. This is demonstrative of the theme of pride in The Stone Angel. It portrays how pride can get in the way of processing large events in a person’s life.
5. While she is in the hospital near the end of the novel, Mr. Troy visits. He is surprised that she asks him to sing a version of the doxology. When he does, she reacts very emotionally. Explain her revelation as she listens to Mr. Troy's
I agree with the Williams that when it comes to the black women culture, they sometimes turn to religion to her guide them. Many centuries again black women had a strong religious background. Hagar was indeed brave from leaving the harsh treatment that she was facing; however, I also had to agree with Williams that liberating herself was great, but she did not think about the consequences when she took those actions.
Third, while Ruth is suffering from a lack of love from an early age Hagar’s relationship with her mother and grandmother is the exact opposite. There is no question that love is present in this relationship. The oversaturation of love that Hagar receives from Pilate and Reba motivates her disillusioned and childish behavior. This is shown when”she lay[s] in her little Goldilocks’-choice bed” and Pilate and Ruth call her as “My baby girl” and allow her to act childishly and rash even though she is a middle-aged woman. (510, 516). Because she has never been forced to mature and grow up she can’t process her rejection from Milkman because she has never had to face rejection before because her parents would drop everything and anything for her
Hagar’s emotional response past life experiences has had a tremendous effect on how she behaved and reacted as an adult. From the beginning of Hagar’s life, she had been unable to show emotion and have sympathy for others. This is evident when her brother, Dan, was dying from pneumonia and Hagar refused to comfort him in his last few hours. This is shown in the quote “I was crying, shaken by torments he never even suspected, wanting above all else to do the thing he asked, but unable bend enough” (Laurence 25). This exemplifies Hagar’s stubbornness and her inability to think of anyone except herself. This quote also shows the emotional blockade that Hagar has set in place as she is unable to comfort her brother and be put in a vulnerable situation.
Nevertheless, the flag stands erect and flapping in the wind. On the right side of the piece, we view the exact magnitude of the storm through the “white wash” of the violent waves. Additionally, the sky to the right of the ship’s crow’s nest is lighter and hints of a sun trying to break through the lurking darkness. Despite the presence of other visual elements, what clearly connects is that the ocean, embellished and predominantly highlighted in the work, was Moran’s principal interest. However, the fact that something so fleeting as surging waves dominates the composition even to the visual expense and weight of an obviously colossal ship.
Hagar desires nothing more than to get away from Marvin and Doris and prove to them she can be independent. Even as Hagar is on her deathbed, her resentment towards Doris for putting her in this situation comes out as Doris is passing her a cup of water, Hagar snaps,
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
She expresses herself in ways that are more destructive. Violence is the outlet Hagar sees in expressing herself. Her “graveyard love” for Milkman initially mutes her voice (148). His goodbye letter “sent Hagar spinning into a bright blue place where the air was thin and it was silent all the time, and where people spoke in whispers or did not make sounds at all, and where everything was frozen except for an occasional burst of fire inside her chest” (116). Hagar is hardly aware of her own emotions and finds it impossible for her to tell Milkman how she feels because she has no identity. Instead, Hagar turns to physical violence. She was a “doormat wom[a]n” that “wanted to kill for love, die for love” (336). When she tries to kill Milkman, she finds herself “paralyzed” by her obsessive love for him (150). Like Ryna, her love left her. When Milkman left and “dreamt of flying, Hagar was dying” (363). Hagar’s extreme obsession ultimately turns self-destructive and assists to the cause of her death. She spends her last hours in a frantic search for clothes and cosmetics that will make Milkman love her again. She dies convinced that “he loves silky hair . . . penny-colored hair . . . and lemon-colored skin . . . and gray-blue eyes” unlike her own (346). To Hagar, her African-American race and body are worthless if they do not attract Milkman; she was trying to create “this ideal of beauty” that she could never have (Pereira). Hagar’s dependence on Milkman and
Cleary seen in the quotation above, the curse resulting in the murder of Albatross left the Mariner viewing death as the only possible option to relieve himself of the haunting, tragic images that left his crew dead. Under the moonlit sky as the Mariner’s ship still sails cursed, but then he witnesses something that changes his perception of God and his faith.
"I wouldn't let him see me cry, I was so enraged. He used a foot ruler, and when I jerked my smarting palms back, he made me hold them out again. He looked at my dry eyes in a kind of fury, as though he'd failed unless he drew water from them." (Page 9) Hagar's father straps her hands with a ruler but even as a child, she will not let her tears be seen, she will not let him see that he is hurting her. Even when her brother Dan is near death, she will not comfort him, for it requires that she act as their mother, which to her is despicable. "But all I could think of was that meek woman I'd never seen, the woman Dan was said to resemble so much an from whom he'd inherited a frailty I could not help but detest, however much a part of me wanted to sympathize." Hagar cannot bear the thought of pretending to be someone as feeble and weak as their mother. Throughout her marriage, Hagar never lets Bram know that she enjoyed their lovemaking. "He never knew. I never let him know, it was all inner. (Page 81) When Hagar's husband Bram dies she does not shed a tear, not even when there is only her son to witness it. "But when we'd buried Bram and come home again and lighted lamps for the evening, it was John who cried, not I." (Page 184) Still, when her son John dies she does not weep, as if she had been born without tear ducts. "The night my son died I was
It is this admission of guilt that allows the process of forgiveness for the Mariner to begin. It also allows the Albatross to become a reminder of the Mariner's sin, a representation of Christ's suffering, and a symbol of the Christian cross. In lines 40 and 41 it says, "Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung."
Using the senses of seeing, feeling, and hearing in The Rise of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Coleridge demonstrates the use of many sensory details. The appearance of the Ancient Mariner, the Nightmare Life-in
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.
First, the reader can see obvious similarities between the mariner and the Biblical character Adam. According to Christian belief, Adam committed the original sin that caused mankind to suffer as a whole (Harent 3). In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the original sin is the mariner’s killing of the God-sent albatross. Even though the crew, like humanity, did not commit the original sin, they ultimately inherit the repercussions of the sin.
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.