Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Allegorical significance in the life of the ancient mariner
The rime of the ancient mariner the moral of the story
Allegorical significance in the life of the ancient mariner
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The Depressing Truth:
An Analysis of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Occasionally, the wisest people are often the sadest. The harsh realities of the world often take an effect on the experienced individuals, causing a depressed mindset. The world as we know it has many luxuries, but with those commodities also comes sorrow and miseries. One piece of literature that shows this relationship is Samuel Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. A sailor is cursed for killing an albatross, and primarily lives to tell the tale of the ghost ship. The mariner informs a young man who is about to attend a wedding. The boy decides to bypass the wedding after hearing the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and flees the conversation
…show more content…
An odd sensation, full of guilt and anxiety, overcomes the mariner when he crosses a potential target. The only relief that the man can find comes after the interpretation of his story. This struggle of the sailor is due to the curse condemned on him for slaying the albatross. He is forced to tell a horrifying tale, and be used as an example to pass on a crucial message. “He prayeth best, who loveth best/ All things both great and small;/ For the dear God who loveth us,/ He made and loveth all.” The seaman travels the world, picking out the people who need to experience the message passed through his oral legend. Each person is chosen because of their lack of knowledge towards living things, and the importance of them all. The history of the sailor leaves an impression on the distinct listeners, and they always depart as wiser …show more content…
“He went like one that hath been stunned/ And is of sense forlorn/ A sadder and a wiser man/ He rose the morrow morn.” Life is full of many luxuries that are matched with equal miseries. When discovering the rhythm of life, and adding experience to your voyages the harsh realities of existence are uncovered. The young boy, who skips the party to re-examine his life, finds that life is a sorrowful place filled with countless miseries. He recalls the events in his life that produced guilt, and suffers from the agony all over again. Guilt and remorse cannot be eliminated, and they live with you every day throughout life. The young boy leaves the conversation, and dodges the wedding, because the remorse of these past experiences flushed through
The author shows the reader the sea just as the sailor does as death, but more than death
“It was a large, beautiful room, rich and picturesque in the soft, dim light which the maid had turned low. She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and sounded mourning notes without promise, devoid even of hope. She turned back into the room and began to walk to and fro, down its whole length, without stopping, without resting. She carried in her hands a thin handkerchief, which she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her. Once she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the glittering circlet.
...He is still anchored to his past and transmits the message that one makes their own choices and should be satisfied with their lives. Moreover, the story shows that one should not be extremely rigid and refuse to change their beliefs and that people should be willing to adapt to new customs in order to prevent isolation. Lastly, reader is able to understand that sacrifice is an important part of life and that nothing can be achieved without it. Boats are often used as symbols to represent a journey through life, and like a captain of a boat which is setting sail, the narrator feels that his journey is only just beginning and realizes that everyone is in charge of their own life. Despite the wind that can sometimes blow feverishly and the waves that may slow the journey, the boat should not change its course and is ultimately responsible for completing its voyage.
In the 1798 and the 1817 text of the, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, There are certain changes. Changes that effect the poem and the way that the reader sees the poem. Some of these changes include reading devices called glosses. There are many reasons for the glosses to be put into the poem. One of the reasons is to help the reader interpret lines in the poem that can be confusing. These glosses are a brief interpretation of the stanza, so that the reader will understand it the way that Coleridge intended them to. An example of this is:
Next, the Albatross gives the sailors a feeling of prosperity, while the Raven gives the old man a feeling of remorse. The Raven’s presence and repeatedly saying “Nevermore” reminds the...
the story of a sailor suffering through hardships because he was meant to be a
The Seafarer highlites the transience of wordly joys which are so little important and the fact thet we have no power in comparison to God.
The resolution of the Mariners decision caused him and his shipmates to fall into a curse, which led the Mariner into an eternal penance. The Mariners penances was to retell the story of what a Mariner's choice against nature he made and the events that he went through at sea. After the death of the Albatross, the Mariner felt as if he was pull down by a curse. The vengeance of the curse occurs as a result of his actions, leading towards the Mariner's shipmates souls being taken away. Following the death of the Mariner's soul, the Mariner began to experienced redemptions against the decisions he
The mariner reconciles his sins when he realizes what nature really is and what it means to him. All around his ship, he witnesses, "slimy things did crawl with legs upon the slimy sea" and he questions "the curse in the Dead man's eyes". This shows his contempt for the creatures that Nature provides for all people. The mariner begins to find his salvation when he begins to look on the 'slimy things' as creatures of strange beauty. When "the mariner begins to find his salvation when he begins to look on the 'slimy things' as creatures of strange beauty" he understands the Albatross is a symbol of nature and he realizes what he had done wrong. The mariner is forgiven after sufficient penance. The mariner's experience represents a renewal of the impulse of love towards other living things. Once he reconciles his punishment is lifted. The bird, which is hung around his neck as a punishment, falls into the water and makes the change from punishment to penance.
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 were lucky because at the beginning of their voyage they had good weather. The mariner only saw what was on the surface -- he did not see the good weather as evidence that Someone was guiding them. Also, when he shot the Albatross, the Mariner did not have any reason for doing so. The Albatross did nothing wrong, yet the Mariner thought nothing of it and without thinking of the significance of the act, he killed the bird. At this, the Guest was reminded of how self-absorbed he, too, was, and the sinful nature of man. At the beginning of the poem he was very much intent on arriving at the wedding on time. He did not care at all about what it was that the Mariner had to tell him; he did not want to be detained even if the Mariner was in trouble. Instead, he spoke rudely to the mariner, calling him a "gray-beard loon", and tried to go on his own way.
Overall “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is poem that seems like a simple story told by a sailor about his woes at sea. But Coleridge uses many details to make symbols throughout the story for the reader to interpret and see the connections between it and religion. Whether it be through the Christ like albatross, which most would just see as a simple bird, or the woman on the boat showing how the lifestyle might be fun but ultimate leads to nothing we see that these small details create a bigger story than what is just on the cover.
The catalyst for the emergence of Christian symbolism occurs when the mariner commits a sin by murdering one of God’s creatures. By killing the albatross, he inevitably brings about a series of trials amongst himself and those aboard the ship. Though the significance of this sin is first unseen by the mariner, supernatural forces quickly condemn his actions as a severe crime against nature. With no real reason, the mariner kills the albatross and soon realizes the magnitude of his actions. Viewed beyond simply a good luck charm, “At length did cross an Albatross, Through the fog it came; As if it had been a Christian soul, We hailed it in God’s name” (ll. 63-6). The idea of the Albatross representing Jesus Christ is a direct parallel in the Christian religion. The death of the Albatross is reminiscent of the death of Jesus in that both died as a result of another’s sin and betrayal of God’s word. Similar accounts of betrayal are portrayed ...
To the Romantics, the imagination was important. It was the core and foundation of everything they thought about, believed in, and even they way they perceived God itself. The leaders of the Romantic Movement were undoubtedly Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his close friend, William Wordsworth. Both were poets, and both wrote about the imagination. Wordsworth usually wrote about those close to nature, and therefore, in the minds of the Romantics, deeper into the imagination than the ordinary man. Coleridge, however, was to write about the supernatural, how nature extended past the depth of the rational mind.
Throughout the semester, we have studied numerous texts that are written in our literature books. During this time, I have learned an immense amount of information that has either changed my perspective or shocked me from creative writing. One of the texts I favored is a poem by, Samuel Taylor Coleridge titled, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” I selected this poem because it gave a different meaning to the word penance. In this story, danger was created by the Mariner who killed the bird that was supposed to be good luck. Once the arrow hit and the bird fell, the Mariner said with worry, “I had killed the bird that brought fog and mist.” As he walked around with the Albatross hanging from his neck as punishment, bad luck surrounded him. His ship mates all died, however he still refused to take the bird off of himself because of guilt. This story within a story stuck with me because of the creativeness that coleridge used while writing this legendary tale.
Fear has taken a hold of every man aboard this ship, as it should; our luck is as far gone as the winds that led us off course. For nights and days gusts beyond measure have forced us south, yet our vessel beauty, Le Serpent, stays afloat. The souls aboard her, lay at the mercy of this ruthless sea. Chaotic weather has turned the crew from noble seamen searching for glory and riches, to whimpering children. To stay sane I keep the holy trinity close to my heart and the lady on my mind. Desperation comes and goes from the men’s eyes, while the black, blistering clouds fasten above us, as endless as the ocean itself. The sea rocks our wood hull back and forth but has yet to flip her. The rocking forces our bodies to cling to any sturdy or available hinge, nook or rope, anything a man can grasp with a sea soaked hand. The impacts make every step a danger. We all have taken on a ghoulish complexion; the absence of sunlight led the weak souls aboard to fight sleep until sick. Some of us pray for the sun to rise but thunder constantly deafens our cries as it crackles above the mast. We have been out to sea for fifty-five days and we have been in this forsaken storm for the last seventeen.