Important Ideas from Samuel Coleridge

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Elderly people are always a very different, yet interesting type of people. Of course, they have been around longer than all of us here today and therefore experienced many things in their long journey in this world. Since they have been around for so much longer there is much more wisdom installed within these people. They have seen, experienced, and know much more about life than those of us who are young and inexperienced. As a young person it sometimes can be very hard to stay interested in what someone who is older has to say, it’s easier to just tune them out until their story is over. Yet if a young person were to listen to what that elderly person had to say with no doubt there would be something taught or various words of advice would be given. The idea of this is greatly represented in Samuel Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner when the mariner grabs a hold of a young man and tells him a story while teaching him some important things. In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge, Coleridge explains the mariner’s lifelong penance, his affect on the audience and a lesson about human life is suggested.
As a result of the mariner shooting an innocent albatross his has a penance that is short lived while a penance he has to live with for a very long time. Toward the beginning of the poem right after the albatross had saved the men from the ice they were stuck in, in part two on page 824 lines 91-94 it says, “And I had done a hellish thing, And it would work ‘em woe: For all averred, I had killed the bird That made the breeze to blow.” The ancient mariner had decided to kill the bird that had saved them therefore the bad luck came and they were caught in the doldrums dying from malnourishment of both food a...

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...rag to hell A spirit from on high; But oh! More horrible than that Is the cure in a dead man’s eye!” Knowing what he was doing by killing the bird the man did not care in the moment nor did he when they were dying he continued to feel self pity for himself. In the end he did feel guilty only because the dead has focused eyes on him and his mistake which killed them all.
In conclusion, this poem of a dream ended up having some important messages hidden within. It is important to listen to elderly people and give them a chance rather than just shrug them off. Even though it can be hard as a young person it is needed because each generation that comes loses more and more history from the past generations. The wisdom of the elderly is immense compared to those of us who are inexperienced and foolish.

Works Cited

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge

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