MARINER WRITE. FREE

One of the most ghastly events in the poem is when the ghost ship arrives, bringing Death and Life-in-Death to gamble for the souls of the crew. The curse that comes from the death of the Albatross is inexplicable, and Coleridge requires the reader to suspend disbelief and look beyond the events to unearth symbols of punishment and redemption. However, once the albatross is gone, the mariner can never forget his sin. It is as if some higher power has lifted his burden lifted from him. The mariner has learned to love and to see beauty in nature. The albatross falling off the mariner’s neck is a symbol of his redemption.

MARINER WRITE. FREE

“The self-same moment I could pray and from my neck so free The Albatross fell off, and sank like lead into the sea” (4.288-291). Once the Mariner realizes the beauty of the world and his connection to nature, he unknowingly blesses the creatures he once saw as cursed. The albatross hanging around the Mariner’s neck separates the him from the rest of the crew because it is a visual symbol of his sin. As Coleridge writes later in the poem, the albatross loved the Mariner, just like Jesus once loved the people who crucified him.

Coleridge portrays the albatross as Jesus, and many painters of this time actually depicted the albatross as being crucified. “Instead of the cross, the Albatross about my neck was hung” (2.141-142). This calm that ensues is an eerie stillness, a mariner’s worst nightmare, because they were reliant on the wind for movement. “And I had done a hellish thing, and it would work ’em woe: For all averred, I had killed the bird that made the breeze to blow” (1.91-94). Only after the albatross is gone does the mariner realize how much he needed it. When the mariner shoots the albatross it is symbolic of breaking the bonds between humans and nature. The fog and mist and the wind the albatross brings imply that it has some sort of divine power. “And a good south wind sprung up behind the Albatross did follow” (1.71-72). The Albatross is a good omen, especially when it is following the mariner’s ship and watching out for the crew’s safety. “Through the fog it came as if it had been a Christian soul” (1.64-65). Once the mariner has begun his tale, neither he, the listener, nor the reader can stop.Ĭoleridge presents The Albatross is presented as Christ- like and returns to it frequently throughout the poe to illuminate the elements of supernaturalism. The mariner’s tale is so vivid and magical that it captures the reader’s attention as well, as if they too are mesmerized. When he relates his tale, it releases his agony, but it adds to the agony of the listener, who “is of sense forlorn: A sadder and a wiser man” (7.623-624). “I pass, like night, from land to land I have strange power of speech That moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me: To him my tale I teach” (7.586-590). The mariner must tell his tale otherwise he will remain in agony. “Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched with a woeful agony which forced me to begin my tale and then it left me free” (7.578-581). Not only is the wedding guest forced to listen to the story but the Mariner is also forced to tell it. Mesmerism was the word they used for hypnosis in the Eighteenth Century because it had to do with the inner mind and perhaps the unconscious, subjects that Coleridge was very interested in. “He cannot choose but hear” (1.18 and 38). He would prefer to go to the wedding, but is held by the mariner’s gaze. A three year old child does not have much say over what happens in his or her life, and likewise, the wedding guest does not have a choice over whether he stays to listen to the mariner’s story or not. The wedding guest is compelled to listen, as if he is under a spell. “He holds him with his glittering eye– The Wedding-Guest stood still, And listens like a three years’ child: The Mariner hath his will” (1.13-16). The power of hypnosis or mesmerism is one of the main supernatural themes in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” The mariner is able to hold the wedding guest against his will, as if he has the power of hypnosis. This is apparent in his poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, where Coleridge asks the readers to suspend disbelief in order to see the significance behind the supernatural or magical elements. Scholar John Beer comments that Coleridge incorporated “magic” in his poetry, asking readers not to question its practicality. As a result, the supernatural is a common theme in many of Coleridge’s poems. Coleridge was particularly interested in the supernatural. Rather, they were able recognize the importance of non-rational processes in the mind. Poets in the Romantic period were not preoccupied with reason, unlike most of the intellectuals in the Eighteenth Century.

Mariner write.