In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge tells the story of a sailor and his perilous adventures. This story follows the Mariner and its crew as they travel between the equator and the South Pole, then return to England. On the surface, this story appears to be just another sailor's story. If the reader digs deeper, he will discover not only a story, but a search to understand man's place in the divine plan. Coleridge, like other Romantic poets, attempts to strike the right balance between reason and spirituality and uses his poem to show the complexities of free will and the consequences of disregarding divine influence. Like other Romantic poets, Coleridge uses symbolism to connect the material world with the spiritual. Coleridge's chosen symbols help him illustrate this theme of spiritual connection in a world overrun by reason, because "for Coleridge, the symbolic vision is deeply religious, elevating the creator of symbols - the poet - into the divine realm of the giver of symbols” (Levy 225).Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essay The Romantic movement can be seen as a reaction to the Enlightenment's emphasis on logic and reason. In fact, the Romantic movement is an attempt to explore consciousness, imagination and feelings. Major themes of the Romantic movement include the relationship between man and nature, contemplation of the divine or infinite in nature, respect for the natural world, and the symbolic nature of liminal spaces. A typical theme of romantic stories is the transformation of the protagonist from a state of innocence or grace to a realization of human nature, usually achieved through some sort of spiritual intervention. Drawing on the Enlightenment's emphasis on reason and evidence, the Romantics placed great emphasis on the experiences and revelations of the protagonist. Although “The Age of the Ancient Mariner” takes place in the physical world, it can be interpreted as an allegory for the dangers one faces. faces when they struggle against the divine. In the epigraph, Burnet balances man's need to understand the visible world against the ability to accept the invisible. The divine approaches man through the invisible world by presenting him with symbols and omens in nature. The Mariner is a mortal man who binds himself to the supernatural. Since the Mariner is mortal and part of the natural world, he can only accept the supernatural through physical events in the natural world. Coleridge's poetic world is a balance between the limitations and difficulties of mortal man and the discipline and guidance of the divine. Coleridge illuminates the hidden workings of the spiritual world to draw attention to man's inability to escape his connection with the supernatural. In his hubris, the Mariner ignores the divine message and attempts to assert his will over the natural world. Since it is man's nature to question the divine plan and his place in the natural world, the sailor's sin can be punished and atoned for. The poem begins with the sailor outside a wedding approaching the guests. The backdrop of the wedding is Coleridge's way of grounding the story in the mundane world. "In this context, the Mariner stands out as a 'grey-bearded loon' – and this epithet, however, says more about the callousness of the common man than the folly of the Mariner" (Chandler 405), showing that worldly reason does not always allow one to see the true value of a person. In the wedding guest, the Mariner finds the ability to learn a lesson from his fate. He feels the need tounload on this unfortunate stranger. By introducing his story, the Mariner piques the curiosity of his listener. When the wedding guest exclaims: “God save you, former sailor!” /From the demons who torment you like this!- /Why do you look like this? (Coleridge II 79-81), the Mariner knows that he has found the one to whom he must teach his lesson. The sailor begins his story with the killing of the Albatross, which is not a common bird. This albatross brought with it a "good south wind" (Coleridge ll 87) to the fog-plagued ship, and is considered by the crew to be a good omen. The Mariner shoots the albatross with his crossbow and his comrades curse him for betraying their good fortune. When, upon the bird's death, the fog cleared, his comrades then hailed the Mariner as a champion. “It was true,” they said, “such birds to kill, /That brings fog and mist” (Coleridge ll 101-102). The Mariner's comrades are not only superstitious, but they are easily influenced as to the meaning of these superstitions. By killing the object of the crew's superstition, the Mariner exercised man's ability to reason about divine will. The Mariner shoots the albatross to prove that it is not a spirit, but a deadly creature. The killing of the bird is their undoing, for the sailors were correct in their first assumption: the bird was an omen of divine guidance. By killing the defenseless albatross, “the sailor commits a serious offense which, however enigmatic it may be, consists of something more heinous than killing the bird: he has transgressed a moral order” (Netland screen 1). It does not take long for the albatross to begin taking revenge, as the Mariner's "act of violence is wicked and requires penance" (Foakes 51). When the ship reaches the equator, it is becalmed and the wind stops filling its sails. Thus begins the Mariner's penance, for the murder of an innocent bird. At this point, Coleridge begins to use the ship as a symbol of the crew's penance: "Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink" (Coleridge II, 121-122). Zens elaborates by stating, “The vast sea surrounds the crew, but the dehydrated men are unable to drink the available salt water” (Zens 194). Coleridge also uses the following stanza to show how he feels about these men, who would turn their backs on divine intervention: "Yes, slimy things have crawled with their paws/On the slimy sea" (Coleridge ll 125 -126). All the men on board the ship know who caused this punishment and so hang the albatross around the sailor's neck. Not only has the albatross become a very physical reminder of the sailor's spiritual indiscretion, but it also "renders the sailor like a cross on which the corpus hangs" (Hillier 12), symbolically linking the albatross's death to the death of innocence that Christ suffered on the cross. Then a spirit comes and moves the ship, without a breeze filling its sails. Men all think that they have paid their penance and have attained salvation. This feeling of hope disintegrates when they see a ship that is a mere frame, and “rather than a revelation of light, it is a revelation of darkness; rather than life, death, rather than salvation, destruction” (Watkins 27). On this ship are two ghosts playing a game of dice. The sailors realize that they have arrived at their day of judgment and stand before the representatives of God and the Devil. The woman, who is the avatar of God or Life in death, has won and chooses the man she will spare. The exchange between the two ghosts shows the Romantic poet's use of symbolic liminal spaces, or thresholds. These thresholds serve to show the uncertain division between two spaces, like thetown and country, two concepts, like love and hate, or two kingdoms, as in the case of the Mariner. The dice game is the Mariner's liminal space, as the outcome determines whether he remains in the realm of the living or enters the realm of the dead. This threshold connects the possible destinies of the Sailor: to die and be damned or to live and undergo his penance. The Sailor becomes the chosen one and must pay the rest of his penance. He has to watch every member of the crew die and curse them. Now the life of the sailor begins to truly parallel the life of a prophet, even that of Christ. His destiny is to live and see the consequences he has worked for. The spirit of the albatross then sends the sailor to the South Pole, "this cold is followed by entry into a new world, into which no human had ever entered" (Peckham screen 1). Coleridge uses this desolate desert to represent Hell and the time Christ had to spend there. The sailor has taken on the role of Christ and must travel to hell to absolve the sins of his shipmates and himself. The spirits who inhabit this frozen Hell join in the Sailor's punishments: "'Is it him?' » said one of them: “Is this the man? /By him who died on the cross,/With his cruel bow he brought down/The harmless albatross'” (Coleridge ll 398-401). Eventually the sailor is able to pray again, and in doing so he unconsciously blesses the hideous snakes that swim around the ship. The act of contrition, represented by his prayers, causes the albatross around the Mariner's neck to fall. The sailor's prayers constitute the turning point of the poem and the transition from punishment to atonement. After his stay in Hell, the Mariner is freed by the words of one of these spirits. “Man has done penance,/And greater penance will do” (Coleridge II 408-409). Not only has the sailor regained his ability to speak, but he is also able to sleep again. When his dreams come, the Mariner dreams of quenching his thirst. The Sailor wakes up in the rain and declares: “Of course I had drunk in my dreams,/And my body was still drinking” (Coleridge II 303-304). Although his journey is not over, the Sailor's act of contrition has improved the conditions of his journey. The liberation does not mark the end of the Mariner's suffering, and an angel comes to take away his ship. The angel puts the sailor in a trance and moves the ship from below. The sailor must be in a trance because the ship is moving faster than any human could. When the angel brings the ship back to the equator, the sailor wakes up. When he wakes up, the Mariner sees all the corpses of the crew standing, animated by angelic spirits. Thanks to the help of the spirits, the Sailor knows that his sea voyage is coming to an end. The dead bring the ship back to the sailor's house. When the Mariner reaches his home port, he sees a ship docking with his. As the ship approaches, the dead crew salutes the sailor one last time as he lies down to collect his last piece. This confirmation from the angelic spirits tells the Mariner that he has paid his penance. The boat that comes to pick up the Sailor from his ship has a hermit on board. The hermit is sent to the Sailor as his confessor. When the Sailor sees this hermit, he asks to be “afflicted”, to be absolved. Modiano says: “This is one of the central paradoxes of the Mariner situation. He can only relieve himself of his inner agony and retain his sanity after his return from the vast solitudes of the ocean by shaping an otherwise formless, incomprehensible and unbearable past into a structured narrative with a beginning, a climax, an end – and a moral lesson. also” (Modiano 43). The completion of his penance does not prevent the Sailor from requesting that his confession be heard; he knows that he must see his punishment through to the end. Even though his penance was paid, the Mariner was trapped by. 66.4 (2008): 194.