The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is one of the longest poems that S.T.Coleridge wrote. The poem reflects all the supernatural events that a mariner experiences on a long and tedious sea voyage. The poem begins with the mariner stopping a wedding guest on his way to a wedding ceremony in order to narrate his tale of agony. The mariner’s tale is about a ship which leaves its native harbour. Initially, all goes well and the ship smoothly sails across the seas. However, misfortune strikes as the voyage darkens and the ship is caught in a labyrinth of ice. An albatross appears in the scene and it leads the ship out of the ice. However, the mariner shoots the bird for reasons unknown. This act of killing the bird invites the wrath of the supernatural spirits who then pursue the ship. These supernatural spirits subject the crew as well as the mariner to a series of excruciating events. The ship is lead from ice to uncharted waters, where the sailors are tormented by thirst. As a reaction to their pitiable state, they blame the mariner and hang the corpse of the albatross around the mariner’s neck. Hopes of salvation run high when everyone on board notices a tiny speck which they imagine to be a ship. However, as it draws closer they realize that it is a skeleton (Death) and the nightmare (Life- in -death) on board the skeletal skull of a ship. They were playing dice for the souls of the crew of the ship and Death wins over the lives of the crew members and life- in -death that of the mariner. All the crew members drop dead one by one, but the mariner survives while experiencing a fate worse than death as punishment for his killing of the albatross. The mariner relates to the wedding guest that he saw the glare of those dead men for seven days. At last as soon as the moon rose, the mariner sees the water snakes that move through the silvery moonlight, and instantly he blesses
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