RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

Three young men are walking together to a wedding, when one of them is detained by a grizzled old sailor. The young Wedding-Guest angrily demands that the Mariner let go of him, and the Mariner obeys. But the young man is transfixed by the ancient Mariner’s “glittering eye” and can do nothing but sit on a stone and listen to his strange tale. The Mariner says that he sailed on a ship out of his native harbor—”below the kirk, below the hill, / Below the lighthouse top”—and into a sunny and cheerful sea. Hearing bassoon music drifting from the direction of the wedding, the Wedding-Guest imagines that the bride has entered the hall, but he is still helpless to tear himself from the Mariner’s story. The Mariner recalls that the voyage quickly darkened, as a giant storm rose up in the sea and chased the ship southward. Quickly, the ship came to a frigid land “of mist and snow,” where “ice, mast-high, came floating by”; the ship was hemmed inside this maze of ice. But then the sailors encountered an Albatross, a great sea bird. As it flew around the ship, the ice cracked and split, and a wind from the south propelled the ship out of the frigid regions, into a foggy stretch of water. The Albatross followed behind it, a symbol of good luck to the sailors. A pained look crosses the Mariner’s face, and the Wedding-Guest asks him, “Why look’st thou so?” The Mariner confesses that he shot and killed the Albatross with his crossbow.

At first, the other sailors were furious with the Mariner for having killed the bird that made the breezes blow. But when the fog lifted soon afterward, the sailors decided that the bird had actually brought not the breezes but the fog; they now congratulated the Mariner on his deed. The wind pushed the ship into a silent sea where the sailors were quickly stranded; the winds died down, and the ship was “As idle as a painted ship / Upon a painted ocean.” The ocean thickened, and the men had no water to drink; as if the sea were rotting, slimy creatures crawled out of it and walked across the surface. At night, the water burned green, blue, and white with death fire. Some of the sailors dreamed that a spirit, nine fathoms deep, followed them beneath the ship from the land of mist and snow. The sailors blamed the Mariner for their plight and hung the corpse of the Albatross around his neck like a cross.

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.


Character List

Ancient Mariner

The poem's protagonist. He is unnaturally old, with skinny, deeply-tanned limbs and a "glittering eye." He sets sail from his native country with two hundred other men who are all saved from a strange, icy patch of ocean when they are kind to an Albatross that lives there. Impulsively and inexplicably, he shoots the Albatross with his crossbow and is punished for his crime by a spirit who loved the Albatross. He is cursed to be haunted indefinitely by his dead shipmates, and to be compelled to tell the tale of his downfall at random times. Each time he is compelled to share his story with someone, he feels a physical agony that is abated only temporarily once he finishes telling the tale.

Wedding Guest

One of three people on their way to a wedding reception; he is next of kin to the bridegroom. The Ancient Mariner stops him, and despite his protests compels him to sit and listen to the entirety of his story. He is afraid of the Ancient Mariner and yearns to join the merriment of the wedding celebration, but after he hears the Ancient Mariner's story, he becomes both "sadder and...wiser."

The Sailors

Two hundred seamen who set sail with the Ancient Mariner one clear, sunny day and find themselves in the icy world of the "rime" after a storm, from which the Albatross frees them. They feed and play with the Albatross until the Ancient Mariner inexplicably kills it. They begin to suffer from debilitating heat and thirst. They hang the Albatross's corpse around the Ancient Mariner's neck to punish him. When Life-in-Death wins the Ancient Mariner's soul, the sailors' souls are left to Death and they curse the Ancient Mariner with their eyes before dying suddenly.

Albatross
A great, white sea bird that presumably saves the sailors from the icy world of the "rime" by allowing them to steer through the ice and sending them a good, strong wind. The Albatross, however, also makes a strange mist follow the ship. It flies alongside the ship, plays with the sailors, and eats their food, until the Ancient Mariner shoots it with his crossbow. Its corpse is hung around the Ancient Mariner's neck as a reminder of his crime and falls off only when he is able to appreciate the beauty of nature and pray once more.


Themes
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Theme 1 Man is a sinful creature, but redemption awaits him if he repents his wrongdoing and does penance. This theme manifests itself as follows: First, the ancient mariner kills the albatross, committing a sin. Then, during his terrifying experience, he has a change of heart and is sorry for his sin. Finally, after confessing to the Hermit, he carries out a penance, which is to travel the world and tell his tale to strangers.
Theme 2 Man should respect all of God’s creation, of which the albatross is a part. In doing so, he respects the Creator Himself.
Theme 3 Guilt and justice hound sinners until they repent their wrongdoing. In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner guilt and justice appear in the form of strange natural phenomena, as well as spirits.

Imagery . The poem is rich in figures of speech. Here are several examples:

Alliteration
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, For he heard the loud bassoon.
Simile With Alliteration
The bride hath paced into the hall,.................[hath, hall: alliteration] Red as a rose is she....................................[Red as a rose: simile with alliteration]

Personification/Metaphor
The Sun came up upon the left,.....................[Sun referred to as "he": personification; all personifications are also metaphors] Out of the sea came he ! And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea.

Paradox and Irony With Alliteration
Water, water, every where,............................[water, water, where: alliteration] And all the boards did shrink ; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink....................................[It is ironic and paradoxical that water is everywhere but none of it can be drunk]

Imagery - Weather: The Good, The Bad, The Icy, The Dry
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
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
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
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
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.