Reading Response #3

Daniel P. Watkins is the author of the article that I read. In this article the author tells us about history as demon in Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner". The author shows the two most relating aspects in the poem and how things in the poem symbolize Christianity as well as demonic forces. He explains the parallels between  the albatross and the wedding guest and how they are very important to everything that follows. How the mariner gets both of there undivided attention. The wedding guest is described in terms of religion as well as the albatross, like the wedding guest the bird has religious significance when he came to the mariner "As if it had been a Christian soul" (65). And when reading this poem who really is the mariner? "Ha! Ha! quoth he, full plain I see, The devil knows how to row"(568). When the mariner kills the albatross what we see is Christian power turn into demonic power. The power that the mariner has is capable of recking certainty and turns of orthodoxy upside down an example of this is when the ship rounds the horn and heads into the pacific ocean then the "sun rose upon the right" (83) this happens when the mariner kills the albatross. When the darkness come's and the wind stops to blow the mariner is treated just how he treated the albatross. Christian symbols become symbols of death and violence. And finally after days with no food or water the mariner bless's the snakes without thinking about it, just how when he shot the albatross impulsively. In addition another example of the reversal that happens in the begging and the end of the mariners journey. In the begging of the poem the mariner is happy, he passes a light house which symbols's security this also happen's when he return's but now on the skeleton ship, but the ship dose not immediately come to port but stops in the bay. The ship gives off light hoping people on land would come to see. Pilot, Pilot's boy and hermit sail into the bay toward the ship they are starring into the light. The author believes because of that the mariner is a demon "who's deepest evil resides in his professions of religious pity"(524). The mariner speaks of family, religion and pray after his story. "None of these is a sign of certainty and benevolence; they are signs of hope that come from draning the life and spit of the innocence"(526). In the end the author tells what he thinks is the true meaning of this poem. He says just to try and understand the poem you have to consider the horror elements in the same way that social and historical criticism has begun to explain Gothic imagination. In horror stories very real and very accurate depictions of family life, religion, social class, and political power. He believes that the poem is  the portrayal of these social relations. The mariner leaves social life which had Christian values and now is isolated by himself on a ship until the mariner draws from is own resources  for strength and nourishment he sucks his own blood. And when he returns home he is no longer apart of the community rather is own strength feed of those around him. He only is pursuing personal power. And the community that we see in the begging of the poem is not the same community at the end. The change is from a view of a society that shares into a society that is based of individual desire. This promotes private consumption of the world within Christian values in society, people have come to feed of one another and themselves in stead of finding power from sharing. The mariner and the wedding guest parts ways, the talk is of God and love but the reality is isolation. This is the real horror the poem describes, says the author the, individuals growing distance from the forms of social life that he believes contain the highest possibilities of purpose and meaning.

This poem to me was very weird  because of all the things that happen in the poem. For instance why did the mariner kill the albatross? And why did all of the sailors  have to die? In the Article that I read  portrayed the mariner as a demon. Since the author of the article suggested that the mariner was a demon and thats what caused all the horrible things to take place. After reading the article I have not yet came to a conclusion to who the mariner is. Overall this poem was very strange and interesting.




Ashley Cramblett