An old man with a “long grey beard and glittering eye” (3) stops a wedding guest on his way to the wedding and tell his story. The speaker of the poem suggests that both mariner’s tale and the way he tells it, are so effective on the wedding guest that he cannot help hearing it and “listens like a three years old child” (15). Even though mariner’s impact on the guest as his receiver seems to be magical and mysterious, the poem’s impact on readers is not magical at all. In this essay, I will try to reflect how poem is consciously constructed to be striking and memorable in order to draw readers’ attention by focusing on both some images and its songlike form. Firstly, it is important to underline that this old mariner conveys his story
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For instance, when the mariner says “Water, water every where” (121) to reflect abundance of water, he also reflects its absence by saying “nor any drop to …show more content…
Mariner claims that he ceases to move and his ship is stuck “As idle as a painted ship” (117) in the sea. The word choice “idle” is interesting because the word itself is antonym of the word “motion”. However, the ship is not the only thing ceasing to move. Mariner also claims that he is on an idle ship “upon a painted ocean” (118). When he likens “his ocean” to a painted one, he, in a way, implies that ocean ceases because he does not move, which I find very odd. Ocean is a dynamic component of earth, yet an individual claims that its movement depends on his perspective. It is a little bit out of topic but maybe we can relate this to mariner’s tendency to act individually- in the first place he kills albatross out of collective conscience- but this needs a whole another essay. Anyway, considering all these, I suggest that the word “ocean” is deliberately rhymed with the world “motion”. Even though the relationship between ocean and motion makes sense normally- ocean is dynamic, it always moves-, in that poem the two concepts cause a contradiction when they are rhymed. As can be seen, under the narration of the mariner, Coleridge once again creates a contradiction by applying to repetition. However, more importantly he manages to push reader’s imagination so that they can imagine something (in that case ocean) impossible (an
For instance, when the mariner says “Water, water every where” (121) to reflect abundance of water, he also reflects its absence by saying “nor any drop to …show more content…
Mariner claims that he ceases to move and his ship is stuck “As idle as a painted ship” (117) in the sea. The word choice “idle” is interesting because the word itself is antonym of the word “motion”. However, the ship is not the only thing ceasing to move. Mariner also claims that he is on an idle ship “upon a painted ocean” (118). When he likens “his ocean” to a painted one, he, in a way, implies that ocean ceases because he does not move, which I find very odd. Ocean is a dynamic component of earth, yet an individual claims that its movement depends on his perspective. It is a little bit out of topic but maybe we can relate this to mariner’s tendency to act individually- in the first place he kills albatross out of collective conscience- but this needs a whole another essay. Anyway, considering all these, I suggest that the word “ocean” is deliberately rhymed with the world “motion”. Even though the relationship between ocean and motion makes sense normally- ocean is dynamic, it always moves-, in that poem the two concepts cause a contradiction when they are rhymed. As can be seen, under the narration of the mariner, Coleridge once again creates a contradiction by applying to repetition. However, more importantly he manages to push reader’s imagination so that they can imagine something (in that case ocean) impossible (an