Summary Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Gerardo Tous Leon October 11, 2012
CES 10-B #24
Prof. Santiago English
Rime of the Ancient Mariner/ Frankenstein: The poem starts whit three young men walking together to a wedding, when one of them is repress by a grizzled old sailor. The young Wedding-Guest angrily demands that the mariner let go of him, and the mariner does. But the young man is hypnotized by the ancient mariner’s “glittering eye” and can do nothing but sit on a stone and listen to his strange tale. The Mariner says that he sailed on a ship out of his native harbor below the lighthouse top, and into a sunny and cheerful sea. Hearing bassoon music drifting from the direction of the wedding, the Wedding-Guest imagines that the bride has entered the hall, but he is still helpless to tear himself from the Mariner’s story. The Mariner recalls that the voyage quickly darkened, as a giant storm rose up in the sea and chased the ship southward. Quickly, the ship came to a frigid land “of mist and snow,” where “ice came floating by”, the ship was hemmed inside this maze of ice. But then the sailors encountered an Albatross, a great sea bird. As it flew around the ship, the ice cracked and split, and a wind from the south drove the ship out of the frigid regions, into a foggy stretch of water. The Albatross followed behind it, a symbol of good luck to the sailors. A pained look crosses the Mariner’s face, and the Wedding-Guest asks him, “Why look’s thou so?” The Mariner confesses that he shot and killed the Albatross with his crossbow.
At first, the other sailors were furious with the Mariner for having killed the bird that made the
CES 10-B #24
Prof. Santiago English
Rime of the Ancient Mariner/ Frankenstein: The poem starts whit three young men walking together to a wedding, when one of them is repress by a grizzled old sailor. The young Wedding-Guest angrily demands that the mariner let go of him, and the mariner does. But the young man is hypnotized by the ancient mariner’s “glittering eye” and can do nothing but sit on a stone and listen to his strange tale. The Mariner says that he sailed on a ship out of his native harbor below the lighthouse top, and into a sunny and cheerful sea. Hearing bassoon music drifting from the direction of the wedding, the Wedding-Guest imagines that the bride has entered the hall, but he is still helpless to tear himself from the Mariner’s story. The Mariner recalls that the voyage quickly darkened, as a giant storm rose up in the sea and chased the ship southward. Quickly, the ship came to a frigid land “of mist and snow,” where “ice came floating by”, the ship was hemmed inside this maze of ice. But then the sailors encountered an Albatross, a great sea bird. As it flew around the ship, the ice cracked and split, and a wind from the south drove the ship out of the frigid regions, into a foggy stretch of water. The Albatross followed behind it, a symbol of good luck to the sailors. A pained look crosses the Mariner’s face, and the Wedding-Guest asks him, “Why look’s thou so?” The Mariner confesses that he shot and killed the Albatross with his crossbow.
At first, the other sailors were furious with the Mariner for having killed the bird that made the