J Walsh's Online Journal

Rime of the ancient mariner, part the sixth- a summary

The first voice is asking the second voice how the ship is moving when the wind isn’t blowing. The second voice replies by saying that the mariner is still cursed, ‘still a slave before his lord’ and that the hermit is going to guide the mariner where to go.

The second person is telling them that if they dont hurry then they will be delayed as the trance begins to fade.

The mariner has woken up and has found that the dead men are standing in front of him on the deck and he saw that the curse hasnt gone away and he tells of how it makes him feel.

He starts to feel a wind like presence which makes his fears start to fade, and now the ship is starting to move swiftly but softly on and he sees the top of a light house which makes him feel very happy because he feels that it might be the end of his journey. He started to notice the harbor and how calm everything seemed.

He starts to see signals from the angels that he noticed standing in the harbor, and even though there was silence it brings happiness to his heart. He hears oars in the water and then heard a pilot shout so he whipped his head around and saw a ship. He sees a pilot and a pilots boy which brings relief to him, he then sees another person that is the hermit who is there to wash away the albatrosses blood which will remove the curse and save his soul.

In part the fifth of the ancient mariner, the mariner falls asleep on the boat and has a great sleep. When he wakes up, he feels great and says he feels weightless. He then hears a roaring wind, which starts to move the ship even though its not touching it. The wind turns into a big storm with rain pouring down and lightning thats straight.

The dead men start to rise up from the deck (they are still dead though), without making any sound or moving their eyes. The dead men start to do jobs on the boat, like steering.

When the storm stopped and the sun started to come up, the dead men all stood around the mast of the ship and starting making noises. These noises all joined together and sounded like instruments.

The sounds stopped and the ship cintinued to sail with no wind touching it. The ship moved forwards, backwards and forwards again, and the mariner fell over and knocked himself out.

When the mariner kind of woke up, he heard two voices talking above him; one was asking if he was the man that killed the albatross. The other voice replied that he was the man, and he had been paying his pennance.

“I closed my lids,and kept them close,

And the balls like pulses beat.”

This is the metaphor that i have chosen from part the fourth. I think it describes the feeling when you’re scared you can feel your heart pumping in your body.

The mariner might be scared for the following reasons;

The dead men are laying at his feet and he would probably feel guilty.

Another reason the mariner might feel scared is because he looked to the heaven and tried to pray and realised that he couldn’t. He might feel panicked because when he tried to pray to God he couldn’t find his voice.

The wedding guest and the mariner are standing on the boat together after everyone else has dropped dead. The wedding guest is scared because the mariner has not dropped dead with everyone else. He tells him how scared he is of how he looks, and the mariner tells him not to be scared.

The mariner starts telling the wedding guest about the curse that he has and how it affects him. He tells him that he is very lonely. The mariner carries on by talking about what is surrounding them.

The mariner looks out to sea and sees the water snakes swimming through the water. He realises how beautiful they are and he feels a surge of love in his heart.

The mariner is set free from his curse because he starts to feel the beauty in his heart, and the albatross which is the symbol of the curse falls off of him.