Rime Of The Ancient Mariner Tragic Hero Essay

A tragic hero is defined as a character that commits an error that ultimately leads to their downfall. Much like an epic hero, a tragic hero follows a certain path throughout the story which can be identified using the Zellar Chart. The narrator in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is an example of a classical tragic figure by exhibiting many traits of the archetype and following the zeller chart. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner begins with an old man stopping a wedding guest and telling the man his story. The man was a sailor on a ship that set off on a voyage, but was run off course to the southern arctic by a storm. There the ship was surrounded in fog and stuck by ice in every direction. One day, an Albatross flew to the ship and guided them out of the fog and

The first step of the Zellar Chart is a noble birth or quality, but the mariner had neither of these, for he was just an ordinary sailor. The second step is the call to action. For the mariner, this step is portrayed by the voyage or the Albatross. The voyage is the introducing factor between the narrator and this adventure, however the Albatross is what plunges the man into the realm of the supernatural. There are several supernatural events in this poem. For instance, the ghost ship with the spirits Death and Life-in-Death that play for the sailors lives. After that, the seraphs or angels that possess the sailors to help the mariner back to shore. The near death experience encountered by the narrator is thirst. Next on the Zellar Chart is the overcoming of the fatal flaw or error. This is expressed by the mariners acceptance and release of guilt brought on by the voices in his dream and that all these events are his punishment. Finally the last step of the chart is the reward, which is the mariner returning to land alive. These traits show that the narrator is a tragic hero who underwent a classic hero’s