The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Essay Example

? ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Introduction ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is one of the most important and famous pieces of literary work of the British Romantic Movement, although it was not very well received during the life of Coleridge. The poem is considered, today, as a standard paradigm of creative poetry, typifying the poetic theories of its poet. The poem has appeared in ‘Lyrical ballads, with a few other poems’ (Wordsworth & Coleridge, 1798); and, it describes, in both its earlier and later version, an old mariner who relates his woeful story to a wedding guest whom he happens to meet in a village street. This paper intends to discuss how this poem is considered as a poem of sin and redemption though the “physical and soul journey” (Nelson, 2001, p.148) of the mariner. Poem of Sin The poem is generally considered as a poem of sin. The mariner and his sailors got stuck in a thick and foggy ice field while trying to escape the thunderstorm in the Antarctica. They found an albatross that steered them through the thick fog, so that they might find good winds for their ship. But, we see that the mariner killed the albatross for no reason. This was actually the sin that the poem talks about. The reader is left surprised upon this decision of the mariner, regarding why he shot the albatross that had come there for their help. This perplexity is what irritates the reader in the first read, but as the reader follows the poem, he finds it really rich in context and theme. The albatross is shown as a symbol of Nature, or God’s presence. Read: “At length did cross an Albatross, /Thorough the fog it came; /As if it had been a Christian soul, /We hail'd it in God's name” (lines 63-66). When the mariner shot the albatross, God became angry for him for his sin, and denounced upon him much woe and misery. The sailors confronted with slimy things on the oceans, and ghosts and spirits, which finally killed all sailors, and destroyed the mariner’s journey. Buchan (1969) writes in his essay, ‘The Sad Wisdom of the Mariner’: “The shooting is an act, unpremeditated and unmeant, that nevertheless must be accounted for….” (p.97). The curse, that befell the mariner due to his “unnatural act” (Voglino, 1999, p.53), made him lose his ship and his companions; but finally, he met a rescuer, the Hermit, who brought him ashore. Also, we see that when the mariner shot the albatross, the curse struck the sailors, and they got so angry with the mariner that they hung the albatross around his neck. This was a constant reminder for the mariner about his sin, which had brought immense suffering to the whole crew. An albatross around one’s neck has become an idiom since. An albatross refers to a mistake that one has done and cannot undo it, and which is constantly adding to the suffering. For example, a person bought a motor car, spends money on it to recondition it, but the car is not selling. It is only demanding more expenditure, because of going out of order frequently. So, the car is an albatross around his neck. The old mariner also had this albatross around his neck which constantly reminded him of his mistake or, in this case, sin. Whenever he looked at it, he was reminded of what he did that angered the Nature. Sagar (2005, p.15) writes that, “When the Ancient Mariner wantonly kills that Albatross, the other sailors think it as an unpardonable sin. They believe that no human being has the right to decide who is to live and who is to die. So they decide punishment for his sin.” The sin has also been understood in terms of the mariner’s pride, in literature. Pride has been known as man’s earliest sin, which dates back to Adam and Eve. Literature suggests that mariner’s act of shooting the bird of good omen has something to do with human pride. The albatross came with a lot of good luck for the ship. But the mariner decided to shoot it because he thought that he could do well without it, that he was enough to steer guard the ship in right directions. This pride made him shoot the bird, but he had to pay for his act later on. The poem takes rudiments from the anecdote of Adam and Eve and the crucifixion of Christ, and interlaces them into an utterly imaginative paradigm of human pride. Adam committed a sin, and was exiled from Heaven; and, the whole mankind became the inheritors of his sin, although he repented and redeemed upon his act. The original sin, in the poem, is the killing of the albatross; and, the crewmen became the inheritors of the old mariner’s sin, like when he said: “And I had done an hellish thing, /And it would work 'em woe:” (lines 91-92). The old mariner’s act also symbolizes the sin of a Christian. The old mariner symbolizes Christians who committed sins, and for whom Jesus Christ was crucified, who is symbolized by the albatross hanging around the mariner’s neck. The ghost ship, carrying the two spirits, Death and Life-in-Death, symbolize the aftermath of sin. Death is the consequence of sin, and Life-in-Death means isolation from God, the nature, and the world. The sin brought immense woe to him, and the mariner was not even able to pray to God, as he said, “I look'd to heaven, and tried to pray; /But or ever a prayer had gusht, /A wicked whisper came, and made /My heart as dry as dust” (lines 245-249). Poem of Redemption Another theme in the poem is that of repentance, restoration, and redemption. The old mariner repented upon his misdeed, and restored from evil. His redemption made him survive the bad luck. At the climax of the poem, the mariner experienced a change of heart, and that was the point when the albatross fell from his neck. All the spells of woe began to break when he blessed the slimy creatures, the snakes, which appeared in the ocean before him. “Sure my kind saint took pity on me, /And I bless'd them unaware” (lines 87-88). He had cursed one of God’s creatures, the albatross, and suffered; and now, he blessed another creature, and was relieved. His blessing of another of God’s creatures showed that he repented upon his misdeed. He killed the bird of good omen, and now he blessed the ugliest creature he could see. The spell of bad luck was raised. He was blessed with rain, dew and “the gentle sleep from Heaven” (line 296). So, we see that the mariner’s suffering changed him, and his transformation became the cause of the good luck, that God made him entitled to, after he had repented. He had transformed from a prideful jerk into a pious man. The albatross, which symbolized the burden of his sins, fell away and freed him of his woe and suffering. His remorse began when he admitted that the curse of the dead men’s open eyes was far greater than the curse that had befallen him after the shooting of the albatross. The solitude, that the Life-in-Death had granted him, made him realize his misdeed and admire the exquisiteness of the things around him. His changed attitude, that made him admire things as benign which he formerly considered as malign, had made the super force reverse itself- from bringing woe to bringing happiness (Rueckert, 1983, p.113). The woe had changed into fortuity and blessing. “Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, /Yet she sail'd softly too: /Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze— /On me alone it blew” (lines 461-464). This shows that man, despite being a sinful being, is awaited by redemption and fortuity if he decides to repent upon his sins and misdeeds. Redemption is the door of another life, which is full of blessing and fortune. It is free of the woeful suffering that comes as a consequence of sin. The guilt, that the mariner experienced, showed itself in the form of supernatural phenomena (Sandner, 2011, p.138), including spirits and ghosts, like when he saw the female figure in the form of Life-in-Death. Read: “We listen'd and look'd sideways up! /Fear at my heart, as at a cup, /My life-blood seem'd to sip!” (lines 225-228). It was during a terrifying experience that he repented, opening the doors of redemption. His repentance made him confess in front of the Hermit, who frees him of his guilt and makes him go through the penance of going around the world and telling his tale to strangers. So, ot only he repented upon his misdeed, he also underwent the penance of his misdeed, that is, he went on telling his story to others in order to tell them about the aftermath of sin. Read: “Quoth he, "The man hath penance done, /And penance more will do”” (lines 410-411). We see that, in the end, the mariner had realized that man is supposed to respect all of God’s creatures, whether big or small, beautiful or ugly. He went on telling everyone to love the nature and humanity, like when he told the wedding guest, “Farewell, farewell! but this I tell /To thee, thou Wedding-Guest! /He prayeth well, who loveth well /Both man and bird and beast” (lines 611-614). He told the guest to keep praying and keep loving all birds and beasts that God has created. This shows his repentance upon killing the bird of good omen. His killing of the albatross was the start of his bad luck; while, his blessing of the sea snakes was the end of his misery and the start of his good luck. This transformed him into the admirer of all of God’s creatures, and this was the lesson he carried around the world since then. This message made the wedding guest “a sadder and a wiser man” (line 625), because the mariner had given him the lesson of loving everything that God has created, since God loves his creatures all the same. Conclusion ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ is a poem of sin and redemption. The mariner’s sin of killing the albatross invoked such guilt within him, which led to his repentance and redemption. He continued his redemption through the penance of telling his tale to strangers. The moral of the poem is that we should never undermine or loathe any of God’s creatures, and should love birds, beasts, and humankind, if we want God to keep woe and agony away from us. References Buchan, A.M. (1969). The sad wisdom of the mariner. Twentieth Century Interpretations of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Nelson, V. (2001). The Secret Life of Puppets. USA: Harvard University Press. Rueckert, W.H. (1983). Kenneth Burke and the Drama of Human Relations. USA: University of California Press. Sagar, R. (2005). CBSE Sample Question Papers to Enrich Your English Your English Communicative. India: Rachna Sagar Pvt. Ltd. Sandner, D. (2011). Critical Discourses of the Fantastic, 1712-1831. USA: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Voglino, B. (1999). "Perverse Mind": Eugene O'Neill's Struggle with Closure. USA: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. Wordsworth, W., & Coleridge, S.T. (1798). Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems. USA: Printed for J. & A. Arch. Read More