Greed In The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner

Customarily, society views God as a merciful figure who absolves even the worst of man’s sins. However, in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, God refuses to forgive the protagonist and instigates a lasting procession of damnation. In this Romantic poem, a mariner thoughtlessly kills a holy seabird and consequently suffers a life of eternal penance. By employing symbolism and various stylistic techniques, Coleridge describes the mariner’s action as a crime and coldly depicts the admonishments that follows.

The tone, syntax, and symbolism of this ballad all portray the Albatross’s killing as an iniquitous offence. Soon after the mariner describes the slaying of the bird, he laments, “And I had done a hellish thing, and

This excerpt’s word choice immediately implies a religious condemnation of the action, as the word “hellish” elevates his deed from an impulsive accident to an aberrant sin. Furthermore, Coleridge describes the albatross as “the bird that made the breeze to blow”, which reveals the creature’s symbolic implication and foreshadows the importance of its death. The significance of the crime is further heightened when the mariner exclaims, “Ah! welladay! what evil looks had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the Albatross about my neck was hung” (139-143). The exclamatory syntax used in the beginning of these lines invoke a very emotional tone and signals the immense regret that the mariner experiences. Additionally, the wearing of the seabird’s corpse represents his

The mariner’s first and most significant reprimand is the death of all his shipmates. The figures responsible for the massacre is Death and Life-in-Death, who play a game of dice to determine the crew’s fate. As Life-in-Death triumphs, “Four time fifty living men… With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, they dropped own one by one” (216-219). There are many aspects to this encounter that are unjust. First, the game between Death and Life-in-Death is bigoted because the mariner is doomed no matter who wins. Additionally, the mariner’s ultimate castigation for killing an innocent bird is the death of guiltless shipmates. This situation is ironical, because the punishment seems to repeat the initial crime and abolishes everyone but the actual killer. Nevertheless, God and nature continue to torment the mariner as dark spirits haunt his soul and the fierce sea tosses his weak body. Even after all these angsts, the mariner’s penance persists. The statement, “Since then, at the uncertain hour, that agony returns: And till my ghastly tale is told, this heart within me burns” (381-385) reveals that the mariner’s sins has become a permanent aspect of his life. The fact that the protagonist must carry his guilt for the rest of his life seems inconsiderate, and at this point, readers feel more sympathetic then skeptical