46 pages • 1 hour read
Samuel ColeridgeThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1798A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Part 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2 Summary
The Mariner tells the Wedding Guest that after he had killed the albatross, the winds continued to blow and the ship began moving north. The sailors berated the Mariner for what he had done. However, when the mists begin to fade, the sailors believe this is due to the killing of the bird, and they thank the Mariner for his murderous act.
The ship continues to sail, with a good breeze behind it and with good visibility. The wind then stops and the sea becomes very calm. Below a “hot and copper sky” and “the bloody sun,” the ship becomes stranded in the ocean (5). The Mariner and the sailors are left hot and with no water to drink.
With the ship completely stuck, and he and the sailors dry, hot, and thirsty, the Mariner calls out to Christ, out of the Mariner’s fear of the creatures crawling on the surface of the sea: “The very deeps did rot: O Christ! / That ever this should be! / Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs / Upon the slimy sea” (6). The Mariner believes that a supernatural spirit has followed them from the South Pole and is tormenting the ship.
The sailors, meanwhile, believe their situation is the fault of the Mariner, because the Mariner killed the albatross. The sailors are so thirsty that they are unable to speak and can only give the Mariner “evil looks” (7). They hang the albatross around the neck of the Mariner, in place of a cross.
Part 2 Analysis
Although the Mariner and the Sailors think that killing the albatross was the right thing to do, the natural world—ruled by the Sun and the Spirit—does not agree, and begins to punish the crew for the Mariner’s sin of murder. The Mariner and the crew are tortured as they suffer from extreme heat and thirst, despite them being surrounded by water: “water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink” (6).
As he is facing punishment at the hands of nature, the Mariner has not yet had the Romanticist realization that the slimy creatures he sees sliding about on the sea are actually beautiful sea snakes. The symbolism of the albatross takes on theological qualities, as nature is an extension of God’s will, and to kill something in the natural world for no apparent reason is thereby a sin against God. Because the Mariner can’t yet see the water snakes for what they are—extensions of the proof of God—he is cursed. Instead, the snakes arrive to the Mariner as something closer to demonic, or, at the very least, alien, and not a part of the natural world.
