3. Before the Mariner kills the Albatross, he portrays the natural world in somewhat of ignorantly compared to how he describes it after he kills the Albatross. This difference is to show the shift between his previous character and his new self. "Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white moon-shine," (part 1) is a description of the moon at the beginning of the poem that gives no sign of what is to come. The description seems to only be there to paint a picture of a moon behind a fog. After the Albatross is shot at, the descriptions of nature seem to have a lot more meaning and add more substance to the plot of the poem. The natural world is given a supernatural-like power. Ocean represents the mystery of the human …show more content…
Before the mariner killed the Albatross, his character was in more of an ignorant state that it is after he kills the Albatross and gets rid of his curse. He transitions from a more conscious human being, one who is more appreciative of living things. The mariner was not a cruel person. Prior to his awareness, however, his action to kill the Albatross did not come from the cruelty from his heart, but more from the ignorance of God's demands. God's demands are for humans to respect all of his creation and his creatures—the Albatross being one of them. During his week of his curse, the only living things that were surrounding him were the slimy creatures in the water. These slimy creatures, although they are more often than not viewed as evil animals, are just as much creatures of God than are birds such as Albatrosses. After a while of being surrounded by living snakes, he one day sees them as beautiful creatures, a feeling that came deep with his heart, rather than seeing them in a creepy and ominous light. O happy living things! No tongue their beauty might declare: a spring of love gushed from my heart, and I blessed them unaware," (part 4) his blessing of the snakes without knowing it breaks his curse because he loved one of God's creatures naturally without forcing himself to do so. He saw the life in
In this poem, Frost includes his fear of the ocean and exaggerates its destructive power. As Judith Saunders stated that “The first thirteen lines have depicted an ocean storm of unusual force, and through personification the poet attributes to this storm a malign purposefulness” (1). Frost provided human characteristics on the storm to help prove his point that the ocean has bad intentions and its only purpose is to hurt him. Frost does not describe the waves as a result of unfavorable weather; he explains them as having a malignant intention to destroy the world. This poem revolves around the forces of nature and could be included in the long list of nature themed poems by Robert Frost.
...otter, disturbing high pitched sounf of the oystercatcher, the cormorant, and the heron all connote the idea of an overwhelming chaotic nature of the world. The first two lines of the second stanza justify this view because we find that the speaker has gone through a personal experience of facing death. However, in the majority of the second stanza, the speaker finds a more peaceful underlying order in the next few images he sees. The butterfly, a couple quietly speaking, and the soothing warmth of nature all appeal to an underlying order, filled with peacefulness and serenity. From the different perspectives of a single experience of the speaker, the author is able to create a world where although chaos can be present through personal experience, the underlying order is still intact, as long as one is able to look at it from a more calm and peaceful vantage point.
"The water of the Gulf stretched out before her, gleaming with the million lights of the sun. The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in the abysses of solitude. All along the white beach, up and down, there was no living thing in sight. A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water." Chapter XXXIX
Within the second stanza the clouds in the sky are compared to the “earth’s decaying leaves” (16) and the “Angels of rain and lightning” (18) are a fusion of both a guardian and a killer. The third stanza extends the power and presence of the West Wind allowing it to penetrate the depths of the Atlantic Ocean which causes the “sea-blooms” and “oozy woods” (39) to shed their “sapless foliage of the ocean” and to “despoil themselves.” (40, 42) This compares the sea-leaves to the earthbou...
First, the knowledge the bird brought with it is hanging over the narrators head, and that the narrator is being stalked by his demons after Lenore’s The sea or ocean is usually a symbol of peace and calmness. With the poem taking place by the sea, the entire setting becomes full of turmoil and depressing. The narrator and Annabel cannot escape the darkness because Annabel is dead and the narrator will not leave his beloved. The kingdom by the sea can be pictured having cold stone walls to resist erosion caused by the salt in the salt water and the cold winds that hit against it.
... He uses internal rhyme in the lines “For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams” and “And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side.” And he also uses alliteration “sounding sea.” These literary devices help shape the poem into what it is, without these the poem would have no flow, no tone, nothing to make the distinction between happiness and the morbid feel. I find these very important to the structure of the poem, without these elements the poem would not be what it is today.
Leithauser’s seahorse is used not as an example of ocean life (as the poem may initially suggest), but as a symbol for an item, large or small, that we can look to in our lives to “give us release” from our everyday concerns. Some clear examples of this throughout the poem reside in the fifth stanza with the lines “mailed male” and “turreted, nonsynchronous/ eyes”. In these lines, Leithauser uses diction to convey the theme of whimsical otherworldliness by likening the seahorse’s eyes and body to the chain-male of a knight and the stone turrets of a medieval castle. With these sentences, Leithauser whisks the reader away from the aquatic world of the ocean and into the age of knights and castles. When I am working strenuously to achieve a goal or complete a project, such as drafting a position paper for Model United Nations or completing a complicated experiment in Science class, poems such as “Seahorses” can act as a bridge from the constraining world of reality to a realm of imagination and relaxation. This ability to transport the reader is a central pillar to the overall success of the poem, for although everyone wishes for it, no life is entirely free from labor and stress, and as a result, almost every reader of “Seahorses” can connect deeply with it. This ability to connect with virtually any reader, along with its intricate toolbox of literary devices and themes, has made “Seahorses” one of my favorite
The repetition of sound causes different feelings of uncertainty and fear as the reader delves deeper into the poem. “Moss of bryozoans/blurred, obscured her/metal...” (Hayden 3). The r’s that are repeated in blurred and obscured create a sense of fogginess of the darkness of the water that the speaker is experiencing. The fogginess is a sense of repression, which is attempting its way out of the mind to the conscious. Hayden continues the use of alliteration with F and S sounds. Although they are different letters they produce the same sound that causes confusion, but an acceptance of death. “Yet in languid/frenzy strove, as/one freezing fights off/sleep desiring sleep;/strove against/ the canceling arms that/suddenly surrounded/me...” (Hayden 4). The use of sound at the last six lines of the poem causes the reader to feel the need for air and the fear of death. “Reflex of life-wish?/Respirators brittle/belling? Swam from/the ship somehow; /somehow began the/measured rise” (Hayden 4). The R sounds that begin is the swimming through the water. The B sound that continues right after in “brittle belling” is the gasp of air, and finally, the S sounds that finish the line by creating a soft feeling. As if the reader might not get out in time, even though the lines are saying that the speaker does escape the ship. The fear the alliteration evokes from the reader is the unconscious. The deep inner thoughts that no one wants to tap into. The speaker is accepting the idea of death in the ocean through his unconscious, but his conscious mind is trying to push back and begin the “measured rise” (Hayden 4) back to the
In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Coleridge, The Ancient Mariner is telling his story to a bypassing guest at the wedding, and he is describing the experience of being alone at sea surrounded by only water and his dead crewmates. Coleridge creates dramatic suspense and mystery in this passage through the uses of repetition, simile and imagery.
The main theme of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem is to learn from your mistakes. After telling his tale to the Wedding Guest, the Ancient Mariner realized that the murder of the Albatross was a mistake and lived a life of penance. The act of murder was an impulsive act because the Mariner felt threatened by the Albatross their actions. The deaths of both birds brought about memories from both the Ancient Mariner and Hagar which they shared with other people, the Wedding Guest and Murray F. Lees. These memories help them to realize the mistakes they made. Through their own personal recollections, the Ancient Mariner and Hagar both achieved a better understanding of their lives and in turn were able to die with a sense of contentment and relief.
The resolution of the Mariners decision caused him and his shipmates to fall into a curse, which led the Mariner into an eternal penance. The Mariners penances was to retell the story of what a Mariner's choice against nature he made and the events that he went through at sea. After the death of the Albatross, the Mariner felt as if he was pull down by a curse. The vengeance of the curse occurs as a result of his actions, leading towards the Mariner's shipmates souls being taken away. Following the death of the Mariner's soul, the Mariner began to experienced redemptions against the decisions he
The whole cycle begins with the mariner’s crime against nature: the shooting of the albatross. In the story, the mariner betrays nature by shooting the Albatross. This action against nature is rather extreme, for he takes this thought of death lightly. The Albatross, as a representative of nature, means nothing to the Mariner. These thoughts are quickly changed, though, as Nature begins to start the punishment for his crimes commence when there is, "Water, water, everywhere nor any drop to drink." He is punished harshly for killing the symbol of nature that everyone reveres. He is beaten down by the sun with its rays and is taunted by the endless sight of water that he cannot drink. Nature is the force in this poem that has power to decide what is right or wrong and how to deal with the actions.
He wrote, “This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; / The winds that will be howling at all hours.” He is personifying the sea and wind to draw attention to nature. He describes the way that the tides change with the moon, and he is describing the sound of the wind blowing. He continues in line seven by saying, “And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers.” His utilizes a simile to show that now, the sea, wind, and other things of nature are not significant to people.
As the ancient Mariner described his adventures at sea to the Wedding-Guest, the Guest became saddened because he identified his own selfish ways with those of the Mariner. The mariner told the Guest that he and his ship-mates were lucky because at the beginning of their voyage they had good weather. The mariner only saw what was on the surface -- he did not see the good weather as evidence that Someone was guiding them. Also, when he shot the Albatross, the Mariner did not have any reason for doing so. The Albatross did nothing wrong, yet the Mariner thought nothing of it and without thinking of the significance of the act, he killed the bird. At this, the Guest was reminded of how self-absorbed he, too, was, and the sinful nature of man. At the beginning of the poem he was very much intent on arriving at the wedding on time. He did not care at all about what it was that the Mariner had to tell him; he did not want to be detained even if the Mariner was in trouble. Instead, he spoke rudely to the mariner, calling him a "gray-beard loon", and tried to go on his own way.
In the beginning, there is a peaceful, blissful atmosphere to the poem. Imagery of light amidst the darkness of the night is created by the use of words such as "gleams," "glimmering" and "moon-blanch'd". The speaker seems excited by the sweet night-air and the lively waves that fling the pebbles on the shore as we see by the exclamation marks in the sixth and ninth lines. The waves "begin, and cease, and then again begin," much as life is an ongoing process of cessation and rebirth. The first stanza is quite happy until the last two lines when the "tremulous cadence slow, and bring/ the eternal note of sadness in." This phrase causes the poem's tone to change to a more somber one