Rime Of The Ancient Mariner

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, writer of the poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, writes about a man who decides to shoot the albatross out of the sky was the first living thing they had seen since they had left port. The people on the ship had become so happy to see it and they began to feed and befriends this bird. The albatross becomes a friend of the ship and its inhabitants until they find ‘the mariner’ on the ground with a sickly look on his face because he has just killed the albatross with his cross-bow. Now that the mariner has killed this bird we begin to see many different symbols formed by it. THE ALBATROSS CREATES MANY DIFFERENT RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS.

There are many different Religious Symbols throughout the poem that relate the albatross to Jesus. The first idea we see created by the symbolism of the albatross is when they first mention the albatross as a “Christian Soul”. In many biblical stories Jesus Christ is often symbolized as and referred to as a bird. In this case they show that through saying that the bird is a “Christian Soul”. The writer then proceeds to tie the albatross to
We first see how the albatross tries to help the people on the boat and lead them in a way like Jesus Christ did. The people on the ship are like Jesus’ followers. When the albatross is killed by the mariner through the use of his crossbow which is the beginning of the curse on the ship as a whole. He then compares the people of the ship as they are dying to the “whizz” of a cross bolt which killed the bird. Once the mariner finally learns to pray the curse is then broken and “like lead” the albatross falls into the ocean. The lifting of the curse was lifted after the man who killed the bird had prayed for forgiveness because even after the bird was killed by the people it wanted to help, it was still able to forgive them like Jesus was able to