TimothySexton.com
A Lot of Learning Makes You A Dangerous Thing
The Simplistic Moral of the Ancient Mariner
The moral suggested at the end of the poem seems too simplistic to account for what is clearly a more complex and confused rendering of the theme of sin and redemption placed upon the Mariner's tale. The poem purports to tell a story about how one man's act of "evil" affects him and the people around him. The story is deeply influenced by religious imagery, yet seems muddled. Why did the Mariner kill the albatross in the first place? What drove him to commit such an act? Was it simply because he didn't "loveth well both man and bird and beast" (612)? Is that what we're supposed to take away from the poem? Too much is missing from this explanation.
The Mariner's guilt seems to extend to all mankind, so much so that all his fellow sailors pay the price for it with their lives. Did they too simply not love "All things both great and small" (615)? Something important is missing here. Explanations as to why the Mariner did what he did and why it was the seemingly guiltless compatriots who paid the ultimate price for it are missing and the moral at the end isn't strong or far-reaching enough to give proper account for things. This moral at the end suggests to me a reading of the poem which goes far beyond what Coleridge is telling us to think and feel through the simple narrative. The Mariner represents more than just a man who didn't feel deeply enough about his fellow creatures. His guilt far exceeds those crimes.
Based on the poem at large his guilt seems to encompass something far more desperate and worldly than the crimes he may have committed based on the moral at the end. Coleridge is purposely leaving something out at the end, for instance, a better explanation for why the Mariner did what he did. This leads one to suggest that perhaps it is the Mariner himself who doesn't fully comprehend his actions, even after all this time and all his re-tellings. Perhaps he can't be counted upon as a fully believable and accountable narrator. The simple moral seems to suggest a reading that maybe the entire poem should be reconsidered in terms of who is telling the tale. Perhaps the events as described didn't actually happen the way we are being told. The Mariner himself may have been in a state of frenzy during much of what happened and maybe the story he tells should be completely reconsidered as a statement of absolute fact. Perhaps it was a dream or a recollection from a state of madness.
The fact is that there is indeed too much moral conflict in the poem for the simple moral at the end to account for. The poem is too complex for the stated moral to be taken at face value, and must be considered more deeply in terms of narrative structure and point of view for a deeper understanding of the real moral of the story to take place.
