Intersection At Sea: The Change and The Changing
Cole Spencer
Intersection is an interesting mix of change and what paths result after. In the intricate poem, Rime of the Ancient Mariner , Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote a powerful tale of a Mariner who encounters spiritual anomalies as he is stranded out at sea. The Mariner is faced with many conflicts and struggles throughout his journey, and his paths along his journey change with it. The Mariner’s experience with intersection grows more frequent over the course of the poem, and his understanding of it goes with it. The Mariner is constantly faced with a theme of intersection; an important change, and then how his path and journey was impacted by it. And each time, he begins to better understand it. Over the course of the poem, the Mariner goes from grieving the consequences of the decisions he makes at intersections to embracing them.
The Mariner struggles with consequences while he grieves the lives of his deceased crew. After the mariner shoots the albatross at the beginning of the poem, the luck of the crew grows thin. As soon as the albatross died, the wind instantly disappeared, and they were stranded. As they begin to see things like sea snakes in the water, it becomes clear that the mariner had brought a powerful force onto the ship and it’s crew. Mysterious winds began to move their ship, and soon, they encounter another one. a skeleton of a ship approaches with the gods Death and Life-In-Death, which then play a dice game to see which of the crewmates lives will be spared. Life-In-Death rolls the Mariner, and the entire crew suddenly drops dead. This was a huge consequence from the intersection of Life and Death in the crew and the Mariner. The quote reads: “The many men, so beautiful/ And they all dead did lie:/ And a thousand thousand slimy things/ Lived on; and so did I..(p.11)” As shown through his wording, he grieved this catastrophe. As he described in the quote, “And a thousand thousand slimy things lived on; and so did I..,” in which he is comparing himself to the slimy things he has seen under the surface of the water. He also says: “The many men, so beautiful,” which expresses his love for his crew, as he called them beautiful, like innocent men who did not deserve death. Bringing himself down to the level of a loathsome slimy sea snake, he struggles to deal with this abrupt change in paths. The Mariner is very overwhelmed by his experience, as his crew all dies. s he nears the end of his journey, he is yet again faced by the same oddity.
During his next experience, he becomes more observant and content with the situation he is faced with. After the souls of his crew fled after they were killed by life-in-death, they suddenly arise again, and are described as something similar to a zombie. He described their ghastly forms as something strange, even for a dream. But suddenly, the crew begins to change once again. The scene followed like so:/And clustered round the mast;/ Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,/And from their bodies passed./”(p.19). This can be seen as a metaphor that describes the souls of the crew finally finding peace, as before their souls fled in fear, but now they elegantly depart in a sweet song. The Mariner’s narrative in this quote sounds like he’s in awe, articulating his experience with words like “sweet” instead of “dead” and “slimy.” This shows how instead of the Mariner seeing it as a dark and grim atmosphere, he begins to observe it more as an enlightening situation. The words used have very different tones that both reflect the mariner’s emotion. This was a huge new path created for the crew, as it is interpreted that they found peace. The Mariner begins to grasp the concept of change and what it brings, but does not yet fully comprehend its effect.
By the end of the story, the Mariner is constantly experiencing intersection and its shifting change. When he finally gets off his ship, the Mariner is faced with one last curse in exchange for his freedom: he must tell his story. His curse is uncontrollable; at random times, he will suddenly go into a trance-like state as he tells his strange tale. “He went like one that hath been stunned,/ And is of sense forlorn:/A sadder and a wiser man,/He rose the morrow morn./...”(p.23) Coolridge writes “he went like one that hath been stunned” .The mariner was very happy to be in the presence of another person. In later stanzas, he describes that he felt so alone on his ship that he felt as if God wasn’t there. But once again, the change of paths drove him away, leaving the guest as “a sadder and wiser man.”. Not only did the Mariner leave a mark on the guest, but the guest did the same, as the Mariner enjoyed the company with him, describing it as “goodly company”. The Mariner now embraces the new encounters as he travels, intersecting with other’s lives and continuing on his own way. The Mariner is now faced with the repeating change through his curse, and is forced to be mindful of the consequences of intersection and what it brings.
Through the hardships of his journey, the Mariner’s naive unawareness of intersection begins to be encompassed through his life. As he travels further across the sea, his learning travels with him. His crew split paths upon the deafening wave of death, and the Mariner mourned. When the crew once again had their path’s splintered as they finally found peace, the Mariner began to grow more aware with the paths that followed. And finally, through his curse, the Mariner is forced to accept the gifts and grieving of intersection as his path ebbs and flows. As the Mariner finally reaches the end of his travels, his experience and understanding with intersection grew. As he sailed, each time he was confronted with intersection, his perspective of it grew, going from being wistful to being content. His curse continues to face him with intersection as he makes friends and splits paths, and he finally comes to terms with embracing it.
