Belated but not B-rated

John Mester 1

John Mester
Clifford
8/8/12
APLit

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a story about an old man with a lazy eye and a withered hand that whisks away an unwitting wedding guest from the wedding and tells the tale that burdens him much. The Mariner begins by setting the scene; a rickety ship with fellow sailors on a morbid ocean. He goes on to mention a fateful albatross and how his friends reacted to its death. At the end of The Rime, the Mariner reveals why he is telling the story in the first place. Coleridge’s imaginative poem meets the reader on multiple thematic planes.
The themes in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner are myriad and complex. We will focus on just two themes and one concept. After our dear Mariner kills the albatross his friends are angry and unforgiving. Throughout The Rime the Mariner expresses regret over his imprudent action. The reader is left wondering whether or not the old man should have killed the albatross and if his friends’ anger was justified. Regret is not an elusive idea, let us see if we can find it within the confines of Rime.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner revolves around one moment in which the old man killed an albatross (a sea bird) that was loitering around the ship for a few days. At that moment it was not clear whether or not the bird brought good or bad fortune [in terms of seafaring weather] to the seamen but regardless the mariner decided to kill it.

“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.

Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,

That made the breeze to blow!” (Coleridge, Rime Part 2)

The Mariner regrets having killed the bird as he recalls it as the “hellish thing” he did. Anger from his peers abounds and he wishes he had not killed the bird that “made the breeze blow”. Later on, the mariner’s actions warrant the death of his friends (strangely because of the albatross).

“Alone, alone, all, all alone,

Alone on a wide wide sea!

And never a saint took pity on

My soul in agony.” (Coleridge, Rime Part 4)

Right after the death of his friends, the Mariner laments that he is lonely and his soul is in agony; clearly a sign of regret. Along with the theme of regret that of forgiveness is also woven in the tale.

The story that the Ancient Mariner has divulged to the wedding guest is one that he tells someone whenever he feels guilty.

“Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched

With a woeful agony,

Which forced me to begin my tale;

And then it left me free.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,

That agony returns;

And till my ghastly tale is told,

This heart within me burns.” (Coleridge, Rime Part 7)

In those moments of guilt, when the Mariner feels that “woeful agony” return, he does not feel forgiven. Though he has already confessed his sin to a professed member of the clergy the Mariner feels compelled to continue confessing his sin. Interestingly enough the Mariner’s only sin, knowable by the reader, is having killed the malevolent albatross. In a way this is an invitation for the audience to forgive themselves for their past grievances against God and man; however, it is not just the Mariner who cannot forgive himself. The Mariner’s fellow seamen are unforgiving of the curse of death he has brought upon them. As they die they leave the Mariner with a good-bye “thanks a lot”.

“One after one, by the star-dogged moon,

Too quick for groan or sigh,

Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,

And cursed me with his eye.” (Coleridge, Rime Part 3)

This most likely exacerbates the Mariner’s scruples over having killed the bird. Along with these themes the concept of the anger of peers rears its troublesome head.

The Mariner experiences the anger of his peers after having killed the albatross and, inadvertently, the peers themselves. It’s interesting that though sometimes we do things that would legitimately arouse the anger of peers, other times the anger of peers is dependent on passing moods and feelings, wayward beliefs, or lofty expectations. Objectively the Mariner did the right thing when he killed the albatross because it was actually bringing the fog and bad weather with it; however, the disapproval of the Mariner’s peers would have him think differently about the matter. The last thing the Mariner receives from his shipmates is a reproachful glare. Two hundred of them gave him this warm parting gift. Perhaps it is not so much the killing of the albatross that grieves the Mariner so heavily but the inadvertent killing of his peers- and their reactions. He carries the memory of their anger with him wherever he goes: no wonder he feels obliged to confess so often. For the Mariner there is something cathartic about confessing the wrongs he has done. The Mariner experiences such a moment of relief in confession after he tells the hermit all the bad he has committed. “Shrieve me, shrieve me holy man!” he says. Thereafter whenever he feels guilty he thinks himself obliged to confess his sins to whomever he finds himself near. In the Mariner’s mind he has not truly been forgiven but must assuage his anxieties each time he remembers his past grievances. By allowing this cycle of guilt-confession-relief to prevail the Mariner does not help himself or his regret. He would do better to pull himself together and move on with his life- despite the anger of peers past.

In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner a few themes are prominent. Regret is abundant after the Mariner’s fellow seamen die. Forgiveness or lack thereof is present in the way the Mariner is dealt with after he has killed the albatross. The Mariner must also deal with the resplendent anger of his peers and the guilt associated with it. If only one thing can be gleaned from reading The Rime of the Ancient Mariner it might be to let go of the past (and not to kill the albatross).

Works Cited

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." By Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Web. 07 Aug. 2012. <http://www.online-literature.com/coleridge/646/>

SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Coleridge’s Poetry.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2002. Web. 9 Aug. 2012..

A note on my use of SparkNotes- I only referenced the plot summary to better understand the poem. The thematic elements that I identified in this essay were not taken from this source.