(A* in A-Level English Literature) This study guide covers each element of crime writing in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. Each element has an explanation and relevant quotes, making it easy to answer the specific essay questions that you may be given.
Type of crime text
The Rime was written before the Golden Age of the detective (1920s/30s)
and so doesn’t fully fit into the crime genre. Instead, its main purpose is to
share a moral message: He prayeth well, who loveth well/ Both man and
bird and beast. Coleridge emphasises this as the Mariner says “To him my
tale I teach” – the story is a lesson. Wedding-Guest represents the reader:
A sadder and a wiser man,/He rose the morrow morn.
It could be seen as an account of a life lost to crime – the Mariner’s actions
leave him passing from land to land for the rest of his life, With a woeful
agony/ Which forced me to begin my tale.
Setting
Wedding – the Mariner prevents the Wedding-Guest from going to
heaven (The bridegroom’s doors are opened wide). Possibly
challenging conventional Christianity as suggests heaven (nature) is
on Earth.
Harbour – represents order and civilisation (The ship was cheered,
the harbour cleared = internal rhyme to show order, positivity). The
ship descends below the kirk… below the lighthouse top – leaving
behind religion and guidance, foreshadowing the chaos to come.
Ship – before the crime, the ship is positive (glimmered the white
moonshine), and the days structured by religion (vespers nine)
Sea – personified to emphasise the severity of the crime (the silence
of the sea). After the crime, unnatural imagery used to show the
natural order of things is subverted (water, like a witch’s oils/ burnt
green and blue and white).
South Pole – the harsh environment emphasises the importance of
the Albatross, making the crime seem worse (The ice… cracked and
growled). Far from civilization.
Hermitage – This Hermit good lives in the wood – internal rhyme
links nature to purity
, Criminal
From the beginning, the use of presence tense makes the Mariner seem
ambiguous and supernatural: It is an ancient Mariner.
The crime is introduced when the Mariner shoots the Albatross at the end
of Part I, quickly setting him up a criminal – he transgresses against nature
and God. Coleridge uses Gothicism to present the Mariner as a criminal –
he is uncanny and possibly abhuman (What manner of man art thou?). He
loses his humanity due to his crime, resorting to self-vampirism (I bit my
arm, I sucked the blood), and becomes unnatural (a thousand thousand
slimy things lived on; and so did I).
Crime
“With my cross-bow/ I shot the Albatross”
By killing the Albatross, the Mariner commits a crime against Nature
– the poem references animist, unconventional Christian ideas, as
the gloss tells us that everything has a soul: there is no climate or
element without one or more.
This includes the Albatross itself: As if it had been a Christian soul/
We hailed it in God’s name. This links the murder of the Albatross to
the murder of a person. His crime is also social – the Albatross is
kind/innocent, but Mariner inhospitably killeth the pious bird of
good omen, breaking social rules. Could be seen as an allegory for
the killing of Christ (as the ‘cross-bow’ reflects crucifixion) or Cain’s
killing of Abel.
Motives
By dedicating only a single line to the crime itself (With my cross-
bow/ I shot the Albatross), and quickly moving the narrative on to
the exploration of the punishment, Coleridge suggests there are no
valid excuses for the crime. Emphasises the murder is immoral as
the Mariner has no motives, making it difficult to sympathise with
him at this point.
Confession
The line depicting the crime itself - the shooting of the Albatross - is
also the confession, as he tells his tale to the Wedding-Guest.
Guilt and Remorse
The cold, abrupt confession suggests he hasn’t given much thought
to his crime, and therefore isn’t remorseful. However, his guilt (a
woeful agony) drives him to tell the tale of his crime. He recognizes
that he has done a hellish thing.
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