Wednesday, February 2, 2011

The Tale of the Ancyent Marinere

          The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere tells the story of an old seaman who had a supernatural experience while sailing around the world. The central action of the poem is when the Marinere kills the white Albatross, which had brought good luck to his journey. There is a lot of Christian symbolism related to the white Albatross and everything that happens after he is killed. In his poem, Coleridge tries to teach some lessons about how mankind should treat Gods creations, including humans and animals.
           The poem begins with the Marinere stopping three people about to enter a wedding. "His glittering eye" pulls one of the guests in. The Marinere then proceeds to tell the guest the story of his ship that was going south. The ship is driven by a storm, and there is a lot of ice. The ship became stuck in ice, and was surrounded by fog and mist.
            They then see a “white moon-shine Albatross” once the ship's crew sees the Albatross everything starts going better for the journey. The Albatross is a good omen for the Marinere and the ship's crew. They feel that the bird is always saving them. They are then able to go north. The Marinere is hypnotized by the Albatross. The Albatross says “God saved the Ancyent Marinere (line 77)... Why look'dt thou so?"(line 81).Then the Marinere shoots the Albatross with his cross bow.
            The pure white of the Albatross represents the purity of the goodness of the Christian soul, which was always there saving them; and it was as if the Marinere had killed a good person who was trying to save the ship. First the crew is angry at him for killing the bird, and then they come to agree he did the right thing. However, after the Albatross is killed everything starts going bad on the ship. The sun beats down, there is no water to drink and they go from calmness to hell. “Water water, every where, Ne any drop to drink.”( lines 121,122) They threw the dead Albatross around the Marinere's neck to have him feel the guilt and burden of killing the bird. The Marinere says, the Albatross was hung “instead of the cross”. (line 141) This represents the burden of guilt the Marinere has for killing the Albatross, because he could not handle the pure goodness the Albatross represents.
            The rest of the Marineres journey is very supernatural. He encounters a ship of death with two strange creatures, and the entire crew except for him dies. This is the crews punishment for agreeing that is was okay to kill the Albatross. The Marinere gives examples about how things in nature are completely out of sync because the world is not right. Once the Albatross has been killed nothing is right with the world. As each crew member on the ship dies they pass by the Marinere “like the whizz of my cross bow”. (Line 223) The cross bow he used to kill the Albatross comes back to haunt him.
              The moon then starts watching over the Marinere on his ship. The Albatross is called “moon-shine” and the moon represents the goodness in the world. By the light of the moon the Marinere starts blessing Gods creatures “and I blessed them unaware.” (Line 285) When he blesses the creatures the dead Albatross falls off his neck and he finally gains some peace. Then it begins to rain, and the Marinere is no longer thirsty. The rain is like a baptism of renewal for him. The poem ends with another bad experience for the Marinere. His boat eventually sinks but his life is saved by another supernatural spirit, the Hermit. The Marinere returns to his homeland, but his eternal punishment for killing the goodness the Albatross represents, is to continually retell the tale of what happened on his journey, and to try to teach anyone that he can, like the wedding-guest, to be kind to all of Gods creatures and to love everything in Nature that God created.


1 comment:

  1. This is a good summary of what may be the poem's central act: shooting the albatross. But is the bird white? Look again.

    ReplyDelete