“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge The poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a truly imaginative work utilizing the familiar yet timeless themes of good fortune, the power of Mother Nature, and adventurous voyages over the sea. The Mariner relates the bone-chilling tale of his adventure to a guest at a wedding in his native country. Although the guest succumbs to the Mariner’s tale, he is eager to get to the wedding, which is about to start. Coleridge chose this occasion for the poem as a form of irony, by providing a stark contrast between the two atmospheres and situations in his poem. The moods of weddings are usually joyful and jubilant, emphasizing love and the union between …show more content…
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 Mariner’s lifelong penance is to relay his story and message throughout the lands to the various individuals he holds a calling towards. The Mariner can only relieve his frequents bouts of extreme agony and guilt from his past by narrating his story and lesson to others, bidding them not to make the same mistake he did. Initially, the listener is reluctant to hear the Mariner’s tale, eager to get to the wedding that is about to begin. However, the listener is somehow drawn to the Mariner and yields to his tale. He becomes enchanted, and by the tale’s end, the listener is left, shocked, speechless, and in awe. He gains a new perspective of the world, and the poem ends with the words, “He [the listener] went like one that hath been stunned / And is of sense forlorn; / A sadder and a wiser man, / He rose the morrow morn.”
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
In another case, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” tells a story about an old sailor, the Mariner, and his long and difficult journey across the ocean. The Mariner stops a man going into a wedding, who is called the Wedding-Guest, and insists on telling him his tale. In the beginning of the Mariner’s journey, his ship gets stuck in a never ending field of ice and fog. They have no way of moving, but then,
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.
Indeed, Shelley’s several allusions to Coleridge’s poem and the parallel plots that Frankenstein’s tragedy shares with the mariner’s tale are intentional references meant to expose her warning purpose. The mariner’s tale is a mirror image of Frankenstein’s—identical yet backwards. The mariner is punished for killing a Christ figure, Frankenstein is punished for vitalizing a demon—both offenses concern the illegitimate use of a godly prerogative and a disregard for the sanctity of life. Captain Walton—the warned—of course, is also a mariner; however, he sails north and the Ancient Mariner—the warner—sailed south. Walton himself is the first to allude directly to the rime saying that he goes “to the land of mist and snow,” yet he swears that he shall “kill no albatross” nor, says he, shall he return “as worn and woeful as the ‘Ancient Mariner’” (33). His vows are ironic, however, because he is saved from that ancient fate only by listening to Frankenstein’s tale which warns him against his hubristic quest for knowledge. Toward the end of the book, Captain Walton weighs his chance for discovery and glory against the lives of his men noting, “It is terrible to reflect that the lives of all these men are endangered through me. If we are lost, my mad schemes are the cause” (181). Happily, Frankenstein’s mariner-like caution proves effective for the captain who heeds the warning and turns back. The second-person
As the ancient Mariner described his adventures at sea to the Wedding-Guest, the Guest became saddened because he identified his own selfish ways with those of the Mariner. The mariner told the Guest that he and his ship-mates
"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a parable of a seaman's crime against nature (pointlessly killing an albatross) and his repentance by blessing the lowly water-snakes. Setting the poem in the Middle Ages in the then-unknown seas near Antarctica, the poet is able to make his narrative credible and give the reader what is called 'the willing suspension of disbelief.' "
In the poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge uses the method of storytelling to acknowledge and implement the reader into the situations that the Mariner faces. Coleridge does this by implementing vivid imagery into his poem to create a tale that we the readers can easily follow such as the tales we tell one another today to learn or understand different concepts in modern day life.
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.
This shows the idea that the retribution was blind to all. The supernatural force dealt punishments to all no matter if they did anything at all. The tone of the poem was very cautionary. The weird old Mariner told this story of danger and woe to warn other people to not make the same mistakes he did. The author does not want you to make a foolish mistake like that of the Mariner of the story, for he knows that retribution is blind and once it’s unleashed just like in the poem it is nearly impossible to contain.
Like the wedding guest, the mariner is presented with the “sad wisdom” or the truth of God, which he does not want to acknowledge (Buchan 103). In contrast, Coleridge presents the character of a hermit who accepts the truth of God and wanders around telling his tale “voluntarily, finding his peace in it”, as he has never done anything to be punished for (Purser 255). To the wedding guest, the mariner gives the advice of “He prayeth best who loveth best/ All things both great and small” (Coleridge 612-13). Coleridge presents this advice in a way satirically to poke fun at this advice, as it is presented in a very hypocritical way and comes from the gullible mariner. This advice is presented as nothing more than a stereotypical message preached
The Rime of an Ancient Mariner is a literal depiction of humans and their feelings towards animals, indicating the time period’s carelessness with shooting animals; thereby, resulting in chaos. Unsurprisingly, the mariner’s voyage is not successful, for his ship ends in the icy waters of Antarctica. An albatross familiarizes itself with the ship and coincidentally, the winds begin to blow the ship in a positive direction. The crew is joyous because they believe this mystical bird is creating the wind; however, the mariner is not as merry. He draws his crossbow and mindlessly shoots the albatross, resulting in an angry crew and a series of traumatic events. Dense fog is lifted; thereby, leading the crew to believe the albatross did not generate the good weather, rather the albatross brought the fog. Unfortunately, the crew unknowingly condemns themselves to death by congratulating the mariner for
In the poem Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge begins at a wedding and an old man grabs the groom from the wedding to tell him his tragedy. The Mariner does this to punish himself for his deeds. Coleridge could have written the poem this way to point out how some men believe that by doing some arbitrary challenging task that they could absolve themselves of their previous actions, even though nothing can change what did happen. By starting the poem this way, he informs the reader that the Mariner regrets what is to come.
Unlike the wandering narrator, the seafaring narrator focuses his descriptions of the community that is present in nature. The seafarer the utterly rejects the notion that a “sheltering family / could bring consolation for his desolate soul” (25-26). This “sheltering family” (25) that the seafaring narrator alludes to in this line is the exact form of close-knit family that the narrator in “The Wanderer” laments for desperately. While the seafaring narrator offers striking similar descriptions of the landscape being “bound by ice” (9), he does not focus on these descriptions to dwell on the loss of an earthly community. Instead, the narrator in “The Seafarer” finds the landscape that he inhabits wonderfully abundant with natural — even spiritual — elements that are commonly associated with an earthly community. In the barren landscape, the seafaring narrator discovers “the wild swan’s song / sometimes served for music” (19-20) and “the curlew’s cry for the laugher of men” (20-21). These vibrant and vivid descriptions of the natural world that the narrator discovers in the harsh,
A significant theme in Samuel Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," is Christianity, which is portrayed through the Mariner’s epic journey. This text is set between the physical world and the metaphysical (spiritual world), similar to religious teachings found in the Bible. With the use of vivid descriptions and strong language in this ballad, moral lessons appear that connect both man and God in order to discover an innate bond and understanding. Though this tale is overwhelmingly bizarre and dark, the moral lessons taught are in line with central aspects of both the romantic period and the Christian religion. In Coleridge's ballad, "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," many Christian ideals are represented throughout the treacherous
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."
In “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere” by Samuel Coleridge, the Marinere attains a change of mindset about the sea snakes he encounters on his journey. This moment is more than a shift from the disliking to affinity of an animal; the juncture echoes a larger change within the Marinere. When one views the incident in conjunction with the concept of seeing from Carlos Castaneda’s novel, A Separate Reality, one can discover that the Marinere completes the act of seeing. This triumph shows that sentimentality is a dominate trait in the Marinere’s personality. Something one could overlook because of his deed of shooting the Albatross. The Marinere’s ability to see creates a shift in perspective regarding the sea snakes, which reflects the larger change of the Marinere’s view, which is that all beings in the world are equal and beautiful.