Ghostly Ships and a Ghostly Man
A joyous seadog goes onto a mighty sailing ship, awaiting the adventures to come. When contact with spirits goes awry, the sailor comes back as a sorrowful being. Samuel Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner tells a tale that few have heard, and now one less than enthusiastic wedding guests gets to hear it. Coleridge’s writing lures readers into a clueless state before things go poorly, speedily changing from an unlucky storm, to a day of good weather, but all for naught as the weather’s good nature dissipates. The transformation of the sailor is startling.
The Mariner starts his voyage happy and hopeful for the coming days. As the ship leaves port, the tone of this section feels light and springy. Coleridge writes, “The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, merrily did we drop”(p. #). From the very start of the mariner's tale, he is leaving with high hopes, excited for the journey ahead. As wind and good tides buff their way, the ship has no idea of what is to come. After what seemed a small thing, his annoyed sailors scolded him for killing the albatross. But after the wind falls away, they realize it would have been smarter to throw the mariner overboard.
The mariner comes back to his home a wiser man. Towards the middle of the poem, Coleridge writes about a small shape, coming over the horizon, and as it gets closer it seems to be a skeleton of a ship with the sun shining through the ribs: “The naked hull alongside came”. After a deadly encounter, he seems an empty husk, with no home left to him. Without his shipmates, and without any living thing to be seen, he turns to God but even God has left him. As he finishes his tale, The mariner leaves one last word of advice, he tells the wedding guest to always hold god’s creatures close and keep his loved ones even closer. From the start of the poem to the end the mariner seems to age a hundred years. He comes out of the port a naive but excited man but comes back on a haunted vessel with his shoulders hunched and his mind broken.
After his deadly mistake, the mariner soon turns sullen and frightened of what will happen next. After the terrible spirit’s rage and the ship stuck in the doldrum, it comes down to the wire for the sailors. Even after hanging the bird off his neck, he and his shipmates are plagued with misfortune. Their water supply runs out and they become more desperate. After the visit from Death, the Ancient Mariner feels lost and without hope, his only chance of survival immovable. All he can do is wait. The mariner is stuck on a ship, rotted and broken and surrounded by his crew’s bodies. The ocean stretches endlessly on with no sign of life except for the occasional fish. He has all of this time to reflect upon what he did, and what a foolish thing it was to do. “So lonely twas that god himself scarce seemed there to be”
As the cherry on top to the long and hardy tale, the mariner now tells his tales to all of those who listen, and those who don’t as well. His experience hardens him, but it also leaves him fragile and without a sense of community. He no longer has a home, even off the ship. His time out on the sea and with the spirits also give him a sort of inner knowledge that overwhelms him. With his story, he grows in knowledge, but the cost was great.
-Anastasia
