Themes And Symbolism In The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner

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

Symbolism is usually used to represent things that are meaningful without actually saying so, you’ll sometimes have to read behind the lines. Symbolism can be used as an artistic or poetic way of writing to represent an idea. There is a lot of symbolism used in the novel “Kindred” by Octavia Butler, she uses symbolism through her character Dana’s constant physical and emotional pain, it’s a motif. The constant pain and abuse Dana goes through represents the fact that whenever Dana travels back in time and gets hurt weather emotionally or physically, she never comes back as she originally was, she brings back a reminder of the past with her.

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 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.”

By killing the albatross, the Mariner sets in motion Christianity’s idea that all except Jesus are sinners, but through repentance one can seek forgiveness and ultimately salvation. However, Coleridge poses a dichotomy regarding the transparency of forgiveness in this ballad. After the Mariner blesses the snakes, the reader presumes the curse was lifted and forgiveness was granted. Although the “Albatross fell off, and sank Like lead into the sea” (288-91), the Mariner was compelled to serve a long-term penance of continually repeating his tale, also serving as a constant reminder of his sin. Where as Christianity teaches that by repenting one achieves forgiveness, Coleridge enacts the idea of retribution in order for the Mariner to ultimately attain God’s forgiveness. For example, one of nature’s punishments taunts the Mariner with extreme thirst, causing him to cry out:

Symbolism is a literary technique that is used to clarify the author's intent. Sometimes it is used to great effect, while other times it only seems to muddle the meaning of a passage. In "Young Goodman Brown," Nathaniel Hawthorne uses objects and people as symbols to allegorically reveal his message to the reader.

Symbolism is when the author uses an object or reference to add deeper meaning to a story. There are hundreds of different symbols authors and poets use and even more ways for them to use each symbol. If you think about it anything really can be a symbol if the author wants it to be. There are some basic things to know about symbolism such as that the night often represents death and the morning usually represents the start of life, another big one to remember is that usually a storm is meaning that there is a conflict. There can be things as Broad as the sky or things as small as a cell used as a symbol. They enhance the theme, ideas, or characters in a story to make it interesting or help prove a point or

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.

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."

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

In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Coleridge writes of a sailor bringing a tale to life as he speaks to a wedding guest. An ancient Mariner tells of his brutal journey through the Pacific Ocean to the South Pole. Coleridge suffers from loneliness, because of his lifelong need for love and livelihood; similarly, during the Mariner’s tale, his loneliness shows when he becomes alone at sea, because of the loss of his crew. Having a disastrous dependence to opium and laudanum, Coleridge, in partnership with Wordsworth, writes this complicated, difficult to understand, yet appealing poem, which becomes the first poem in the 1798 edition of Lyrical Ballads. The Mariner’s frame of mind flip-flops throughout the literary ballad, a

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,

"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.'  "

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.