Learning Life
Korban Verdtzabella
Class H
Learning Life
Hunting can be useful for food, but when you shoot stuff for no reason, bad consequences can occur. In the old poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the ancient mariner tells a tale about his interesting sea voyage. On this adventure the mariner encounters tribulations that cause him to think about his actions and wise up. On the mariner’s journey he comes to several intersections where he goes from being someone who did irresponsible things to someone who acted with thoughtfulness and insight on the consequences.
One of the mariner’s intersections begins when he shoots a bird for no reason; he is irresponsible! The mariner is on his boat and sees an albatross. The mariner says, “With my crossbow I shot the ALBATROSS”(Page 7). As the mariner said in the text he shot a bird, the mariner had no reason to shoot the bird, he… simply had a feeling that he should shoot it. This proves that at the beginning of the mariner’s journey he acted without reason and did not think ahead about what consequences his actions would bring. Soon the mariners crew will get angry and administer the consequences to him.
The mariner now has to face his consequences to help him learn how to think about his actions. The bird has now rott and his crew is angry that he did nothing with the bird while he could. They want to make him bathe in his guilt. The mariner describes, “Ah! Well-a-day! What evil looks/ Had I from old and young!/ Instead of the cross, the Albatross/ About my neck was hung (Page. 9). This quote is saying that all of his crew, young and old staring at him with cold looks on their faces. They put a string through the bird and made him wear it around his neck instead of the cross. This forced the mariner to be reminded of his poor choice. This experience made the mariner think about his life and his choices.
After many experiences, the mariner learns the value of life, friends, and God. The mariner is now back on land. After his experiences he goes to church with his new friends and says, “He prayeth best, who loveth best/ All things both great and small;/ For the drear God who loveth us,/ He made and loveth all”(Page 22-23). At the end of the mariner's voyage he had an epiphany. He realized that he needs to think about his actions and recognize a reason and think about what might happen after he does something. He realized that all life has value. He realized that God loves those who appreciate his creation.
Over this adventure the mariner definitely grew from being a person who acted without reason to someone who loved, thought, and appreciated life-of someone that thought before he acted.
On the mariners journey he encountered intersections, he went from being someone who did irresponsible things to someone who acted with thoughtfulness and Insight on the consequences. The mariner acts without reason in the beginning, shooting an albatross for no reason. After the Mariner does this his crew is mad and he suffers the consequences. The consequences that the mariner endures affects him and he changes his view on life, the mariner realizes that all life has value and that he should think about his actions beforehand. In conclusion, the mariner has had a very hard and eventful journey, as he went along this journey he made choices that were not good and suffered the consequences. Towards the end of his adventure he realized that he needed to act more responsibly and think about his actions. I’m sure you have made a choice that made you, in the future, regret, and if so how did you act on learning from that experience?
