The Killing of an Albatross

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Recommended: Critique of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The beginning of all zombie movies, and the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series, Samuel Taylor Coleridge writes the birth of both of these topics in his short story The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a story written in the Romantic generation. While Coleridge wrote this short story, along with many other stories, Coleridge was under the influence of drugs. Whether he was under the influence or not, Coleridge wrote a story that would forever change the views of many stories. In the following text, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the Mariner’s lifelong penance deals with the burden of killing of an Albatross, and finally how the story affects the listener, and a lesson about human life; dealing with taking things for granted.
First off, in the story The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the storyteller tells a story about a man who has done what he has not, which is killing an Albatross. An Albatross in this story was a bird, representing the winds of the sea. In order to sail the sea back then ships needed wind to carry them along the sea with their sails. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner has to parts of this story where something bad happens, causing a burden for one of the men on the ship. Due to the speaker shooting the Albatross, soon his shipmate’s will all die leaving the Albatross that he killed around his neck as a burden. An understanding of this means that while he killed this Albatross the man was then cursed and stuck in the sea slowly drifting into the polar ice waters and nearly getting stuck and then all of a sudden out of the blue they get out of this dangerous place and settle down in a deserted place where there are no currents to drift them to land. According to the shipmates on deck...

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...wn. There is always someone making a mistake here and there, but they eventually learn from their mistakes. The famous words, “I’m only human” stick with this text very well because not only does the Mariner represent modern day civilization, but it represents civilization for the past couple of decades. Throughout the text, Coleridge explains something much deeper. Even though he was once a drug addict himself, he wrote something that would change the movie/television industry forever. Creating a life-long foundation for the zombie television shows, as well as the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. According to the text there are three things that are represented in this short story, the Mariner’s lifelong penance, how the story affects the listener, and finally what lessons does the human might suggest in the story.

Works Cited

Prentice Hall Literature Volume Two

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