Preview

The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1019 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner Essay
Authors often use literature to give readers knowledge on how to live life and how to be the best person that they can possibly be. Samuel Coleridge and Leo Tolstoy are two authors who discuss morality and give beneficial life lessons in their literary works. Both Coleridge and Tolstoy teach their readers life lessons by using cautionary tales.
In Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, the Mariner is the character that gives the wedding-guest in the poem, and readers, essential life lessons. The importance of Christianity and having faith is displayed in this poem when the Mariner says, “As if it [an Albatross] had been a Christian soul, / We hailed it in God’s name.” (Coleridge 365). That line is essential because it shows how the
…show more content…
That section of the poem is Coleridge’s way of letting readers know that once one strays from God, many aspects of that individual’s life begin to worsen. The Mariner continues to have horrific experiences until he “blessed them [water-snakes] unaware” (Coleridge 370). When the Mariner says, “The selfsame moment I could pray; / And from my neck so free / The Albatross fell off and sank”, he is letting the wedding-guest know that he had turned back to God and that his curse had been lifted (Coleridge 370). Coleridge uses that portion of the poem to let readers know that it is important to learn how to love all of God’s creations, and as a result, one will learn to pray and get closer to God. While the lessons learned in Coleridge’s text focus on the importance of Christianity, Leo Tolstoy uses his literary work to inform readers about the importance of living the “right life”.
In “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, Tolstoy uses Ivan Ilyich’s character as a guide for everything that readers should not be. Tolstoy lets readers know how dull Ivan’s life was by saying, “Ivan Ilyich’s life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.” (746). Ivan Ilyich was a man who based

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge; is a story that is told in a series of poems. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner focuses on the transformation of the main character, the Mariner. The story illustrates the importance of loving other individuals and God’s creation.…

    • 544 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    From the first interaction between the wedding-guest and the Ancient Mariner, the reader is able to get a hold on something more than his unnaturally old appearance, as he is also described to have a “glittering eye”. This disturbs the wedding-guest, who consequently calls him a “grey-beard loon”. However, there is more to his “glittering eye” than initially expected, as he is able to compel the wedding-guest to listen to the tale, he so eagerly wants to expose, like a “three years’ child”. Although the Ancient Mariner clearly takes the form of a human, there are subtle suggestions that he does possess unworldly qualities to him. This unworldly quality is consolidated by the fact that Coleridge chooses to describe him as “it” in the…

    • 956 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holmes and Longfellow

    • 377 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the first stanza, he speaks of a meteor of the ocean air, which I assume compares the boat to a great and speedy force. In the second stanza, he says that the ship is the “eagle of the sea”, which compares it to the national bird and shows it’s strength and dignity.…

    • 377 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Ivan Ilyich Thesis

    • 771 Words
    • 4 Pages

    1. Tolstoy describes Ivan Ilyich’s desire to conform to the standards of his society and his belief that he was leading right life.…

    • 771 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tolstoy uses” The Death of Ivan Ilyich” to illustrate to his readers the undesirable consequences of living a life as Ivan Ilyich did. The theme of the story is lies and deceit. Ivan Ilyich made decisions centered on the thoughts and perceptions of what others thought. He also placed much emphasis on monetary benefits during making decisions. The closer Ilyich becomes with his own mortality, he grasps that he had wasted everything that was pure and meaningful in his life for acceptance, work, and money. The theme of lies and deceit is portrayed throughout the book. “Ivan Ilych wanted to weep, wanted to be petted and cried over, and then his colleague Shebek would come, and instead of weeping and being petted, Ivan Ilyich would assume a serious, severe, and profound air, and by force of habit would express his opinion on a decision of the Court of Cassation and would stubbornly insist on that view. This falsity around him and within him did more than anything else to poison his last days” (Tolstoy 760). Leo Tolstoy’s use of point of view and imagery in ‘The Death of Ivan Ilych’ illustrates inner turmoil between living for their own satisfaction and living for the approval of others…

    • 1093 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ivan Ilyich

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich shares the often scary and sudden subject of death and its relation to life. Tolstoy goes about this topic by sharing the life and death of Ivan Ilyich. Ivan finds himself in physical and psychological agony as his last days wane away. Throughout his sickness, he experiences realizations that make him question his entire life and previous goals. The story of the Ivan’s death are riddled with messages about life and happiness. The three major messages are the important of time, life continuing after death, and possessions and social rank in relation to quality of life.…

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of the most outstanding figures of Romanticism, was born into a religious family. His father was the vicar of Ottery St Mary, a small village in Devon, and through him Coleridge became familiar with the principles of Christianity. Although a number of critics have tried to prove the contrary, references to Christianity can be found in Coleridge’s most famous poetic creation: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.…

    • 2097 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Ancient Mariner Literature Essay "The Rime of The Ancient, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge," is the poem we have been reading in class for the last few days. The poem is memorable because it's twenty-one pages long and has a distinct theme, which involves horror and part conservation. It is also memorable because its one of the first horror stories ever written. The story is about a mariner who is at a wedding and he tells the story to a wedding guest of what happened to him and his crew after he killed an albatross.…

    • 577 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although all of the texts that we have read in class are of equal importance, I have chosen to compare “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” by Leo Tolstoy, “Faust” by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, and “From Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman. All works have to do with the sense of self and coming to terms with the world around them.…

    • 820 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Death Of Ivan Ilyich

    • 330 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Death of Ivan Ilyich: Leo Tolstoy - Rebirth by Death Leo Tolstoy was a great humanist. Evolution of human character was a subject of his close attention. The main personage of the story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" is ordinary official who conduct his life according to a strict social code, never deviating from what was rule d by society, by his pleasure, by materialistic motives, but never by conscience. His contact with his wife and children was limited and shallow because he didn't find pleasure in this.…

    • 330 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Mariner is granted relief from his agony by telling his tale which releases his agony for a short while. The Mariner is telling the Wedding Guest why he must continue to tell his tale, “Which forced me to begin my tale; And then it left me free.” God has granted him the power to tell his tale which sets him free for a short while.…

    • 644 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    The compelling poem “The Eolian Harp’ written by Samuel Coleridge is a poem of medium length, yet by no means a straight forward poem. Its message and ideals are elevated and hidden through Coleridge’s subtle capitalization of words, the pantheism riddled across the poem, and allusions of mythology and bible verses. However, this poem of wind, nature, music, and God is one of the most beautiful poems of the Romantic era because of its superior poetic usage of terms.…

    • 1210 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Elegy Poem

    • 669 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In The Seafarer the character is on his ship hopelessly lost at sea. He suffers from loneliness, sadness and pain from being lost at sea. In the poem he says “How the sea took me, swept me back And forth in sorrow and fear and…

    • 669 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Ancient Mariner

    • 2092 Words
    • 9 Pages

    In the poem's first line, we meet its protagonist, "an ancient Mariner." He stops one of three people on their way to a wedding celebration. The leader of the group, the Wedding Guest, tries to resist being stopped by the strange old man with the "long grey beard and glittering eye." He explains that he is on his way to enjoy the wedding merriment; he is the closest living relative to the groom, and the festivities have already begun. Still, the Ancient Mariner takes his hand and begins his story. The Wedding Guest has no choice but to sit down on a rock to listen.…

    • 2092 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    John Donne's The Flea

    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages

    [I] Religious imagery in this stanza shows the authors’ knowledge of religion and the role it plays in the life of the lovers of this poem.…

    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays