The Rime of The Ancient Mariner - Key Ideas and Quotes

Themes
1. Penance
2. Solitude
  1. "Day after day, day after day... / As idle as a painted ship, / on a painted ocean. "
    1. The metaphor of the "Painted Ship" is something that everyone can relate to, because we have all seen paintings of ships on a voyage at some point in our lives. This "idle" ship is portrayed well by the metaphor as the "painted" part emphasises the complete lack of movement.
  2. And we did speak only to break / The silence of the sea."
3. Forgiveness
4. Crime and Punishment
  1. "And I had done a hellish thing, / And it would work 'em woe: / For all averred I had killed the bird / That made the breeze to blow
    1. This is a statement of guilt and grief: the guilt over killing the bird and allowing the mariners to be without a guide out of this icy hell; and grief because they all now dislike him for putting us into this state. The sailors dislike will put the Mariner in a state of isolation for the rest of the journey. This statement of blame is further emphasised by the Mariner when he mentions that the Albatross was hung about his neck.
      1. "Ah!, wel-a-day! what evil looks / Had I from old and young! / Instead of the cross , the Albatross / Around my neck was hung."
  2. "Water, water, everywhere, / And all the boards did shrink; / Water, water, everywhere, / Nor any drop to drink."
    1. The repetition of Water emphasises the severely dehydrated state of the Mariner, and also indicate that quite a bit of time has passed if they have run out of all their resources already.
  3. Hallucinations
    1. "Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs / Upon that slimy sea."
    2. "About, about in reel and rout, / The death-fires danced in the night; / The water, like witch's oils, / Burnt green and blue and white."
      1. The "green and blue and white" colours emphasise the supernatural element to the Lyrical Ballad
      2. The "witch's oils indicate the Romantic/Gothic nature of the poem.
Parts
1. Part I
  1. The Wedding Guest, the voyage, stuck in ice, he kills the albatross.
    1. 1. The Mariner stops a wedding guest and forces him, spell bound, to listen to his story.
    2. 2. The ship sails south to the equator, the wedding guest hears the music of the wedding beginning.
    3. 3. A storm hits the ship and impels it south. They are stuck in ice. An albatross appears and is befreiended by the shipmates. Asouth wind springs up and takes them northward.
    4. 4. The Mariner kills the albatross with his crossbow.
2. Part II
  1. They suffer punishment for his crime & are becalmed.
    1. 1. The crew at first cry out against him, but then commend him when the fog clears. They sail north and become becalmed at the equator. They suffer from thirst. Slimy things are on the surface and the light are on the water and mast at night.
    2. 2. A spirit follows them under the ship.
    3. 3. They hang the bird around his neck.
3. Part III
4. Part IV
5. Part V
6. Part VI
7. Part VII
Characters
1. The Mariner
  1. "It is an ancient mariner, / and he stoppeth one of three..."
2. The Wedding Guest
3. Death and Life-in-Death
4. Spirits/Voices
5. The Hermit
6. Pilot and Pilot's Boy
Settings/Symbols
1. The Sun
2. The Moon
3. The Ocean
4. The Ship

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The Rime of The Ancient Mariner - Key Ideas and Quotes

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