The Rime of The Ancient Mariner, Class X

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

In A Nutshell

Even though Samuel Taylor Coleridge 's Rime of the Ancient Mariner is one of the most influential poems in the English language, it's still a doozy of a confusing read. It's about an old sailor who stops a wedding guest from entering a wedding celebration, and says, essentially, "I know you want to get your drink and your dance on, but now I'm going to tell you a really long story about how I got my entire crew killed and almost died myself because I acted like a jerk while sailing the far reaches of the globe."

Chances are that this poem is unlike anything you've read before. It will probably leave you with a bunch of questions: Why does Coleridge speak in such an old-fashioned voice? Why does the poem sound so corny? Did Coleridge think this poem was a big joke? Why is the Mariner saved after committing such an atrocious act? And, our favorite: Why on earth did the Mariner shoot the albatross!? None of these questions are stupid or silly. Depending on your tolerance for ghost stories that are filled with strange images and questions that never get answered, you'll either be fascinated by the Mariner and his crazy exploits, or you'll be completely frustrated by him. Either way, have patience, and the poem will seem richer the more time you spend with it.

Why Should I Care?

If there's one phrase to take away from this poem, it's "albatross around the neck." Let us explain:

Have you ever done something stupid and known it was stupid at the time? It's one thing to mess up because you haven't thought through the consequences of your action. It's quite another to think, "Yeah, if I do this, it's going to cause huge problems for me, and I'm going to wish I hadn't done it, but I'm going to do it anyway."

Maybe your parents said that if you went out a certain night you'd be grounded for a month, but you decide to do it anyway, knowing full well that your parents will find out, and it totally won't be worth it. That's a trivial example. How about if a close friend or family member tries to help you, and for no apparent reason, you do something nasty that drives them away? That's more like it.

The Mariner's act of shooting the albatross (that had once brought good luck to his ship) is the mother of irrational, self-defeating acts. He never offers a good explanation for why he does it, and his crewmates get so upset that they hang the dead albatross around his neck as a burden, so he won't forget what he did. To have an albatross around your neck is to have a constant reminder of a big mistake you made. Instead of the gift that keeps on giving, it's the blunder that keeps on taking. As in, "I spent all my money on that motorcycle because I thought it would be cool, but now I can't sell it, and it's too expensive to maintain. That thing is just an albatross around my neck."

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Summary

Three guys are on the way to a wedding celebration when an old sailor (the Mariner) stops one of them at the door (we'll call him the Wedding Guest). Using his hypnotic eyes to hold the attention of the Wedding Guest, he starts telling a story about a disastrous journey he took. The Wedding Guest really wants to go party, but he can't pry himself away from this grizzled old mariner. The Mariner begins his story. They left port, and the ship sailed down near Antarctica to get away from a bad storm, but then they get caught in a dangerous, foggy ice field. An albatross shows up to steer them through the fog and provide good winds, but then the Mariner decides to shoot it. Oops.

Pretty soon the sailors lose their wind, and it gets really hot. They run out of water, and everyone blames the Mariner. The ship seems to be haunted by a bad spirit, and weird stuff starts appearing, like slimy creatures that walk on the ocean. The Mariner's crewmates decide to hang the dead albatross around his neck to remind him of his error.

Everyone is literally dying of thirst. The Mariner sees another ship's sail at a distance. He wants to yell out, but his mouth is too dry, so he sucks some of his own blood to moisten his lips. He's like, "A ship! We're saved." Sadly, the ship is a ghost ship piloted by two spirits, Death and Life-in-Death, who have to be the last people you'd want to meet on a journey. Everyone on the Mariner's ship dies.

The wedding guest realizes, "Ah! You're a ghost!" But the Mariner says, "Well, actually, I was the only one who didn't die." He continues his story: he's on a boat with a lot of dead bodies, surrounded by an ocean full of slimy things. Worse, these slimy things are nasty water snakes. But the Mariner escapes his curse by unconsciously blessing the hideous snakes, and the albatross drops off his neck into the ocean.

The Mariner falls into a sweet sleep, and it finally rains when he wakes up. A storm strikes up in the distance, and all the dead sailors rise like zombies to pilot the ship. The sailors don't actually come back to life. Instead, angels fill their bodies, and another supernatural spirit under the ocean seems to push the boat. The Mariner faints and hears two voices talking about how he killed the albatross and still has more penance to do. These two mysterious voices explain how the ship is moving.

After a speedy journey, the ship ends up back in port again. The Mariner sees angels standing next to the bodies of all his crewmates. Then a rescue boat shows up to take him back to shore. The Mariner is happy that a guy called "the hermit" is on the rescue boat. The hermit is in a good mood. All of a sudden there's a loud noise, and the Mariner's ship sinks. The hermit's boat picks up the Mariner.

When they get on shore, the Mariner is desperate to tell his story to the hermit. He feels a terrible pain until the story had been told.

In fact, the Mariner says that he still has the same painful need to tell his story, which is why he stopped the Wedding Guest on this occasion. Wrapping up, the Mariner tells the Wedding Guest that he needs to learn how to say his prayers and love other people and things. Then the Mariner leaves, and the Wedding Guest no longer wants to enter the wedding. He goes home and wakes up the next day, as the famous last lines go, "a sadder and a wiser man."

Part I Summary

Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.

Stanzas 1-5

• Imagine that this poem starts out like the Vince Vaughn-Owen Wilson buddy comedy Wedding Crashers. Three scruffy-looking bachelors are getting ready to go into this wedding, hoping to party, meet some girls, and generally have a good time. They're laughing and swaggering as they approach the door to the party.
• But standing outside the door you've got this old bearded mariner who suddenly grabs one of the guys. The other two guys enter the wedding feast, and they're like, "See ya in there."
• The Mariner starts to tell a story as if it were programmed into his brain, and the Wedding Guest is understandably impatient, but also kind of rude. He says something like, "Gross. You're old and crazy. Let me go."
• The Mariner immediately ("eftsoons") lets go of the guest, but the magnetic draw of his eyes is even more powerful than his grip.
• The Wedding Guest has no hope of escape. He sits on a rock and listens like a little boy ("three-years' child") at story time. It's going to be a long night.

Stanzas 6-10

• The Mariner starts his story:
• When the Mariner's ship left port, everyone was in a good mood. They sailed out and watched the church ("kirk"), the hill, and finally, the town lighthouse disappear from sight as the ship "dropped" below the horizon.
• Days went by, and the sun rose on the "left" and set on the "right." Every day the sun seemed to rise "higher," signaling that they were approaching the equator. Finally the sun was directly over the ship's mast at noon, meaning they had reached the equator.
• Suddenly the Wedding Guest has second thoughts as he realizes just how long this story is going to be.
• They started playing the music! The bride is led to the dance hall by the entertainers ("merry minstrelsy")! The wine! The women! He's missing out!
• The guest "beats his breast" in a sign of distress.
• But, as we said, there's something about that mariner that gives him power over the Wedding Guest. Something about his eyes…

Stanzas 11-15

• The Mariner continues his story:
• Near the equator, a storm strikes. The storm is compared to a huge flying creature that chases the ship southward. It drives them all the way down to the Arctic, where they start to see huge icebergs that look green in the clear water.
• The sailors find themselves in the middle of an ice field with ice "here," "there," everywhere! Obviously there are no people or animals in sight. The giant icebergs making loud cracking, groaning sounds, like noises you might hear in a trance ("swound").
• At this point, everyone on the boat is convinced that they're done for.

Stanzas 16-20

• Everyone is happy to see another living thing fly past the ship: an albatross! You know, the bird with huge, white wings that can fly long distances across the ocean? Yeah, that one.
• The albatross seems particularly friendly, almost as if it were a person. And not just a person, but a good "Christian soul." Somehow the bird seems related to God and peace.
• The sailors feed the bird, and naturally it sticks around. Soon enough, the ice that had trapped them splits wide enough apart for the ship to sail through.
• More good things happen to the ship.
• A south wind that will take them back up north again starts to blow. The albatross continues to follow the boat in good fortune, and everyone treats it like their pet.
• The albatross follows them around for nine nights, or "vespers." It's still pretty foggy outside, and the moon glows through the fog at night.
• Then people start to notice that the Mariner has this sickly look on his face. They try to cheer up him: "What's wrong, man? Don't let the fiends get you down!"
• And the mariner essentially says, "Remember that albatross that seemed so mysteriously connected to all our good fortune?" Gulp. Uh-huh? "Well, I kind of took my crossbow and shot it." YOU DID WHAT?!

Stanzas 21-25

• At least time doesn't stop after he kills the albatross. The sun keeps rising and setting just as before, and the weather remains misty. Since the sailors are now traveling north instead of south, the sun rises on the right and sets on the left, instead of the other way around, as in Part I, Stanza 6.
• But, leave not doubt, that bird is as dead as a doornail. The sailors' favorite pet is gone. If you have ever read any other literature about sailors, like Melville's Moby-Dick, you might know that they take their good luck charms very seriously.
• The sailors are convinced that the bird brought them the good winds, and they all agree ("averred") that the Mariner has done a bad, bad thing.
• But then the mist goes away, and the sailors change their minds. Instead of bringing the good winds (hooray!), the sailors decide that the bird was responsible for the fog that was making it so hard to see (boo!). They now blame the bird for bad luck. Those fickle sailors.
• Everything is going along quite well for the crew. They carve the mounds or "furrows" of the waves with the wind at their back. They make their way into uncharted territory.

Stanzas 26-30

• One tip for reading this poem: conditions change really fast. It only took a stanza for the sailors to decide that the albatross was really a bad luck charm instead of a good one. Here, it only takes a stanza for the weather to turn from delightful to dreadful.
• In short, they lose the good breeze at their backs, and without a breeze to fill the sails, the ship can't move. Suddenly, the "silence" of the uncharted waters sounds very ominous.
• The sun is small and "blood-red": it looks very far away. The sky has a strange fiery color, but their main problem is a lack of water. If they don't find some kind of land (or, heck, ice), they will all die of thirst.
• There's no wind. Literally. Not even a tiny gust. The ocean looks like glass, and the scene is so motionless that it could be a painting.
• Without any water, even the "boards" – the wood planks of the ship – start to dry up and "shrink." So…thirsty!
• Um, so, sailors, what was that you were saying about being glad that the albatross was dead?

Stanzas 31-34

• When the world gets dry, the ocean starts to "rot" from the dryness. Think of a pond that is drying up, and how it turns brackish (extra-salty) and starts growing nasty algae. The ocean around the ship is undergoing a similar transformation. Its surface turns "slimy" and gross, slimy creatures start to appear.
• These creatures aren't fish: they have "legs." Are they walking on the water, or what? Hard to tell what's going on here, but the poem is beginning to turn strange.
• Crazy, disturbing lights start to appear at night, and the water "burns" green, blue, and white. If you wanted to be scientific about it, you might guess that the Mariner is seeing the phenomenon of "phosphorescence." Some kinds of algae and tiny animals can literally "glow" in the water in certain times of year.
• But Coleridge isn't being scientific, he's being supernatural. Some of the sailors start to dream that a spirit deep under the ocean has been following the ship ever since they left the Arctic. Needless to say, it's not a happy, fuzzy spirit.
• The crew becomes so thirsty that they stop producing saliva and cannot talk. But they can still give the stink-eye to the Mariner. "This is all your fault."
• In one of the poem's most famous images, they hang the dead albatross around his neck.
• Side note: First, when did they pick up the albatross? We never heard about that one. Second, that albatross must really stink to high heavens.

Weather: The Good, The Bad, The Icy, The Dry

Symbol Analysis

In pretty much any poem or novel about life at sea, you can expect quite a lot of attention to be devoted to the weather. But who could have expected a huge fog near Antarctica, a massive drought that turns the ocean into a swamp, or a lightning show that gets dead people moving again? Here's the general trajectory: the Mariner's ship gets driven down south by a bad storm, then the albatross guides them through fog and ice, then they suffer a truly horrifying, windless drought, the Mariner sees a massive and supernatural night-time storm, and he finally gets carried by invisible forces back to the bay.

• Part I.Stanzas 11-12: The storm that drives the ship south is compared metaphorically to some kind of winged predator on the hunt. The ship is like the animal at ground level that runs in the "shadow" of the predator to escape it.
• I.15: The ice near Antarctica makes loud cracking noises that sound "like noises in a swound," that is, like the sounds a fainting person might hear. The word "like" makes clear that this is a simile.
• II.25: This stanza, describing the good weather (which lasts all of one stanza) enjoyed by the crew, features the alliterative repetition of the "f" sound, as in "furrow follow free."
• II.28: When the wind dies and the ship can't move, the scene is compared using simile to a motionless painting.
• II.29: The ship's shrunken wood boards become central image of the terrible dryness that the killing of the albatross produces.
• II.33: The crew becomes so thirsty that it's as if their mouths were full of dry "soot," or ashes, which is a simile.

Moon, Sun, and Stars

Symbol Analysis

What is this, an astrology lesson? With the attention he pays to the moon, sun, and stars, you'd think the Mariner had a Tarot card collection. Well, that's actually not too far, considering that these phenomena are invested with supernatural powers, particularly after the Mariner shoots the albatross. Above all, the moon is calling the shots, both in terms of the Mariner's punishment and his eventual penance. Watch out for any images of the moon and its white light.

• Part I.Stanza 19: The first image of the moon is of the white light shining through the fog down in the Arctic. Sounds beautiful, right? Wait until those sailors see what the moon has in store for them.
• II.27: When things start to go bad for the crew, the sun's color is compared to blood, and, more ominously, its size is the same as the moon's.

The Albatross

Symbol Analysis

We've got really mixed feelings about the albatross. If it hadn't come along, then sure, the whole crew probably would have died in that ice field. But, to be frank, the consequences of shooting the albatross seem almost worse than death. Maybe that's because shooting it is a completely senseless act. As a persecuted figure of salvation, the albatross resembles Christ in many ways, especially when you consider that a bird often symbolizes Christ.

• Part I.Stanza 16: The albatross is treated like a person, a "Christian soul," by the lonely sailors. In Christian symbolism, Jesus Christ is sometimes compared metaphorically to a bird, so the albatross could be a symbol for Christ.
• II.23-24: Coleridge uses parallelism to show how the sailors quickly change their mind about whether killing the albatross is bad or good. The structure of the last four lines of these stanzas is the same, starting with "Then all averred" (agreed) and continuing with "bird to slay."
• II.24: The albatross becomes the defining symbol of the Mariner's big mistake. As a symbol of the burden of sin, it is compared explicitly to the cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified.

Colors

Symbol Analysis

The importance of colors in this poem goes along with the interest in the supernatural (see below) and specific patterns of images like the moon and sun (see above). However, there's so much "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds"-type craziness going on with sea snakes and angels and ice that we just wanted to point it out to y'all.

• Part I.Stanza 13: The icebergs in the Arctic Ocean are compared to the green color of an emerald (simile). The color green is the ocean's "normal" color in this poem.
• II.31: The water begins to turn strange colors at night after the albatross has been killed. These supernatural green, blue, and white lights are compared in a simile to "witch's oils," which are used for spells and enchantments

The Religious and the Supernatural

Symbol Analysis

It's hard to separate the religious, spiritual, and supernatural in this poem: welcome to Romanticism. By the end of the poem, the message of the Mariner's bizarre and violent story has become, "Go to church and say your prayers, lad." Huh? This message doesn't seem to fit well with the poem's religious and supernatural imagery, which doesn't adhere to traditional Christian themes. Rather, the poem seems more like a radical re-working of Christian symbols. Keep an eye out for the Mariner's attempts to pray in the second half of the poem.

• Part II.Stanza 32: The sailors begin to dream of a malevolent spirit following them from nine fathoms under the ocean.

·         Speaker Point of View

·         Who is the speaker, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?

·         You got to love a speaker that says eleven words in the first two lines before passing the poem off to a strange old man who likes to hang around outside wedding celebrations. But in all seriousness, the speaker of the poem is basically a narrator who sets up the action in this dramatic poem. The narrative has two levels: there's the story of the Mariner and the Wedding Guest, and then there's the story-within-a-story of the Mariner's voyage, which takes up most of the poem. We can comment briefly on the nature of the narrator of each story.

The narrator of the poem has a third-person limited perspective. That is, he knows the thoughts of only one of the two characters, the Wedding Guest. But he stays out of the way for most of the poem, and we don't learn the Wedding Guest's thoughts until the end, when we discover how he became a sadder and wiser man. At the beginning of the poem, the narrator uses one of the most ingeniously simple devices we've seen: "It is an ancient mariner…" "It is"! Brilliant. He doesn't even present the narrative as a story, he just points and says, "Look. There he is – that old sailor. Have fun, kids." Easiest narrator job ever. Then again, one of the more interesting questions in the poem is: is the narrator the "sadder and wiser" version of the Wedding Guest? Are they the same person? That, at least, would help explain how the narrator knows his thoughts at the end.

Both the narrator and the Mariner use old-school language, with words like "stoppest," and, our favorite, "eftsoons." And by old school, we don't mean nineteenth century, we mean closer to fourteenth century. Coleridge writes the poem in the voice of popular English balladeers, like the person who sung the famous ballad "Sir Patrick Spens." Many of the famous English ballads didn't have a single, named author. Instead, they were collective works that were revised and re-revised through the years, as different performers added their own touches.

As for the Mariner, he's also a true performer. In fact, his position mirrors that of the popular balladeer, in that he travels from place to place repeating his tale to different audiences. Except that he finds his audiences using his Troubled Soul Detector. Like any oral poet worth his salt, the Mariner uses lots and lots of repetition so that the listener will remember important things that happen. So, for example, the lines: "The ice was here, the ice was there, / The ice was all around." These lines might make a reader shout, "We get the point! Lots of ice!" but for the listener without a text, it helps him keep the elements of this very long story in place.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Theme of Pride

In Christian writings, pride is one of the most basic and important sins, the one has been getting humans in hot water ever since Adam and Eve. As the proverb says, pride goeth before the fall. While it's not clear exactly why the Mariner shoots the albatross in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the answer has something to do with pride. He obviously didn't intend to bring about drought and death to the crew, but he thought they could do without this bird whose arrival happened to coincide with a lot of good luck. The poem takes elements from the stories of Adam and Eve and the crucifixion of Christ and weaves them into an entirely original take on man's pride.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Theme of Suffering

Suffering is sometimes the only way to change someone's habits for good, and it takes a whole lot of this painful medicine in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to make the Mariner realize that all of nature's creations are worthy of love and respect. The entire poem, but especially the middle section concerning the drought, contains enough suffering to last several lifetimes. Our vote for the most cringe-worthy moment is when the Mariner has to bite his arm to wet his black lips with his own blood so that he can yell.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Theme of Isolation

The Mariner in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner seems to have been a pretty sociable guy before he took that fateful trip down to the Arctic, but now he travels the country looking for former lost souls like himself. His best friend in the poem is a hermit, if that tells you anything. After the experience he has been through, he can't just return to normal society. The idea of going to a wedding is very distasteful to him, for example. The low point of the story he tells is when he is left the only man standing on the ship and must suffer the cursing stares of all the dead men.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Theme of Transformation

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner goes through several important transformations at key points, like after the Mariner shoots the albatross, but the most important transformation is the Mariner's conversion from prideful jerk who hates large birds to pious soul who can pray for even the ugliest creatures. The albatross that hangs around his neck represents the burden of his sins, which fall away when he repents and blesses the sea snakes. However, he hasn't simply wiped away his evil deeds after this transformation. His penance continues throughout the rest of his life, every time he feels the painful urge to tell his story.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Theme of The Supernatural

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is Exhibit A for evidence of Coleridge's wild imagination, which was helped along by a moderate-to-heavy opium usage. He takes bits and pieces of mythology and symbolism from Greek and Roman myth and Christian scripture and manufactures a modern ghost-and-zombie story complete with visits from Death and his grisly accomplice, Life-and-Death. The power of supernatural forces over the ship and its crew helps to make the Mariner's own feebleness clear. The supernatural is often related to meteorological (weather) and astrological events in this poem.

And a good south wind sprung up behind; The albatross did follow, And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariners' hollo! In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine; Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white moon-shine." "God save thee, ancient mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus! – Why lookst thou so?" "With my crossbow I shot the albatross. (I.18-20)

When the Mariner shoots the albatross, the question isn't whether the albatross was bringing the ship good luck, although the poem suggests that it does. The question is: what did the albatross ever do to him? The answer seems to be "nothing," so the Mariner shoots it only because he can. Pride is inherently irrational.

Quote #2 And I had done an 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! Nor dim nor red, like an angel's head, The glorious sun uprist: Then all averred, I had killed the bird That brought the fog and mist. 'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, That bring the fog and mist. (II.23-24)

The sailors misinterpret why killing the albatross is such a bad thing. They only care about their own self-interest, and as soon as the fog goes away, they are no longer angry with the Mariner. Maybe that's why they get whacked by Death later on.

Quote #1 And every tongue, through utter drought, Was withered at the root; We could not speak, no more than if We had been choked with soot. (II.33)

The Mariner undergoes several stages of suffering after he kills the albatross. In the first stage, extreme drought and thirst, he shares this punishment with the crew. Also, remember how extreme thirst was also one of the curses suffered by the ghost crew in Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean? We think the writers of that movie knew their Coleridge.