The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor .
Coleridge, deals with the Mariner's alienation from the .
subsequent reconciliation with the natural world. The .
Mariner's shooting of the albatros suggests his .
alienation from natural life because the albatros is a .
symbol of good omen. As a result of killing the .
albatros only bad things will come. What seems to make .
the albatros fall from the Mariner's neck and leave him .
momentarily free is reconciliation, meaning a change .
from bad to good. This symbolizes that the Mariner has .
finally come to realize the natural life as well as the .
rest of his surrounding.
The Mariner is alienated from the natural world .
because of the shooting of the albatros. He didn't .
have any premeditated thoughts about killing the bird. .
The Mariner just acted on impulse and didn't even .
consider what may arise from his actions. One way to .
look at the albatros is as a guiding spirit. The .
albatros always kept an eye on the Mariner and watched .
over him from the sky.
The Mariner becomes reconciled with the natural .
world. The Mariner blesses unaware "happy living .
things", when a spring of love gushed from his heart. .
The result of this blesssing is a change in the Mariner .
from bad to good. When the albatros falls from the .
Mariner's neck it shows that the spell is broken and .
the Mariner is free again. He no longer is cursed with .
a bad omen from the killing of the albatros.
The moral significace of the Mariner's contrast .
response to living things were on two different levels. .
On one level the Mariner sees himself and only himself .
above everyone and everthing. On the other level were .
all the other creatures on the natural world. In part .
II, the Mariner describes the creatures of the ocean in .
a negative perspective; "slimy things did crawl with .
legs upon the slimy sea"(125-126). The difference .
between part II and part IV, is that part II is .
negative and had nothing to do with the Mariner and .