Sin, Penance, and Redemption in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

In the history of ancient poets, there emerged great writers who correlated the underpinning lifestyles on social life they believed in. Merited information on their writing remains tangible and historical based to disseminate the realities of many beliefs and conducts made in different scenarios people found themselves in. ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ is one of the longest poems in writing history written by Samuel Coleridge in 1798 (Rubasky, 1). Ideas of sin, penance, and redemption are denotable from this poem in relation to the ancient approaches of acts of sin, the encountering of the sinners, and the relatable redemption after several befalling of …show more content…

Appalling things revolved around their journey at the point of ‘slimy sea’ as the sailor’s lack of a single drop to drink and the occurrence of dancing death-fires at nights which camouflaged in different colors. Scary nightmares and follow up of evil spirits from land to the snowy sea frightened the shipmates that led to disillusioned actions of the accompaniments of the ancient mariner. They hanged dead Albatross on his neck in the verge of easing and appealing the worsening spirits activities against their wellbeing. As Coleridge states, “Instead of the cross, the Albatross, About my neck was hung” (140). Punishment intensity climaxed when Spectre-Woman appeared with barking and dreadful sounds and caused an additional fear to the shipmates. There was Albatross killing, and so was the punishment inevitable. She was capable of thickening human blood with cold, an act she practiced to the other men who sailed with the ancient mariner. It is clear from the poet’s elaboration that killing the man who killed Albatross would not be as severe to his punishment as killing the men he sailed with and continue sailing alone in the midst of snowy sea. Mariner’s shipmates were killed in a fast and remorseful manner whereby they dropped one after the other, dead. In the assurance of maximum torment to the mariner, every man’s soul was identifiable as they crossed his face like the whizz of his crossbow shot. Penance defined the nature