The Albatross: The Misfortune Of The Ancient Mariner

Throughout the book, it is shown that Robert has a special connection with animals and the environment. The many animals he encounters throughout the story are symbols which reflect on him and his actions. After Robert

As Cole stared at the tiny bodies, sadness flooded through him. The sparrows were so frail, helpless, and innocent. They hadn’t deserved to die. Then again, what right did they have to live? This haunted Cole. Did the birds’ insignificant little existences have any meaning at all? Or did his (82)?

In the end of the book, Walton does in a sense kill an albatross but instead of rougher seas and a curse, it’s the opposite affect. The albatross in that particular part is the Creature, and he decided that his death is needed in humanity.

Many humans possess curiosity as a common trait. It refers to the strong desire to know something. To see the unseen and to know the unknown is inherent in human nature. Although people want to know the details of others’ lives, the search for truth may not always end with good results. In “Reports on the death of the Seattle albatross” by W.P.Kinsella, the main character becomes the object of much interest, but he later suffers from the demands of his fans, his girlfriend, and the authorities who were curious about him.

Throughout the poem, the albatross serves as a symbol for both good fortune and sin. While the albatross was still alive, it represented good luck that caused a breeze to blow the ship from the icy South Pole towards the Equator. However, in its death by the hands of the Mariner, the albatross is a testament of the Mariner’s sin, and by hanging around the Mariner’s neck, it symbolizes a hovering curse.

The Englishman and Santiago are both looking for something, the alchemist and treasure. But the difference is that the boy is searching by observing his surrounding and the Englishman is searching by reading the books. Though they might not agree with each other's ways they still respect each other and are good friends. As Santiago tells himself, "Everyone has his or her own way of learning things." The Alchemist chose to befriend Santiago instead of the Englishman because Santiago examined the desert and the people of the caravan. The Englishman was immersed in his books, not bothering to contemplate the desert until Santiago advised him to. The alchemist even says, “He has other things to do first. But he’s on the right track. He has begun to try to understand the desert.” As for the two hawks and the falcon they represent the understanding of nature and what it tells us through symbols. They also reveal the knowledge of how the world and all of its inhabitants communicate and ultimately work together to find their personal legend. As far as the fact that they are dead, it is my belief that the alchemist sent his falcon to kill them because Santiago read their

Not everyone is perfect, therefore everyone everyone makes mistakes in which they learn life lessons from. The story “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is about a wedding guest telling his story about how he wronged nature and went behind God’s creation and killed a bird. He then had a spell cast on him and through all of this he learned that everything created by God is perfect and should not be harmed. I have also learned a similar lesson from a mistake I made when I was younger. I believe that people should respect one another and that going behind or harming their belongings will only make matters worse.

However, when retrospectively looking at the principles of the butterfly effect, it is clearer to see how one pull of a crossbow can diversify into the death of a whole crew. To understand this more deeply, it is important to look at what effect that albatross could have had, were it not slain. By killing one bird, it is possible to have decimated countless more generations because of its inability to reproduce. Now this still may seem unbalanced based on the inequality of lives lost in that moment. That’s why it’s important to reflect back on the introduction of the Albatross in the poem.

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.

As the ghost ship nears, a spell is cast upon the ship and all of the mariner's young crew fall dead. The mariner is able to see the souls of his crew leave their bodies and it is at this point which he begins to feel remorse and guilt. "and every soul, it passed me by, like the wiz of my cross-bow!" (Coleridge 222). the mariner now knows that it was his actions that caused this and must take accountability for what he has done. Coleridge's use of the word "bow" in this quote is very important. It shows that now he does feel remorse for killing the bird because he feels it was as if his own bow killed those men. As the mariner begins to accept all f this information, he begins to realize that this is not his home. This is the home of nature and because he is a guest on these waters, he should appreciate it. "the many men, so beautiful! And they all dead and lie: and a thousand slimy things lived on; and so did I." (Coleridge 236). Now that the mariner has taken responsibility for his actions, he looks to God for forgiveness. Through prayer, he tries to ask for forgiveness but knows that in order to reach it, he must first repent. "I looked to heaven, and tried to pray; but or ever a prayer had gusht, a wicked whisper came, and made my heart dry as dust." (Coleridge 244).

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a complex tale of an old seafarer, was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and published in 1798. According to the Longman Anthology of British Literature, the work first appeared in “Lyrical Ballads”, a publication co-authored with William Wordsworth (557). The ancient mariner’s journey provides for such a supernatural tale, that all who must hear it, specifically the wedding guest in the poem, are enthralled. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the mariner’s tale is the obvious themes of sin and redemption. By using the story-within-a-story method, Coleridge gives the audience a tale that resembles a very Christian-like voyage from one theme, sin, to the final theme, redemption. Throughout his poem,

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.

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.

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.

According to Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia, an allegory is described as a fictional literary narrative or artistic expression that conveys a symbolic meaning parallel to but distinct from, and more important than, the literal meaning. This is true in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is an allegory that symbolizes the inherent struggle of humans facing the ideas of sin and redemption. In writing this poem, Coleridge spent four months of sustained writing upon his purpose of supposing that supernatural situations are real. This purpose is seen clearly in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", which demonstrates