In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge presents us with a poem with a host of possible interpretations, heavily laden with symbolism and moral sentiment. Since The Rime represents one of the romanticism period’s finest poems, it deals with relationship of man and nature. In it, we have a colorful tale of a mariner who sins and his eventual redemption at the mercy of nature. There are many Christian references throughout the poem, and, while too many symbols exist in this vein to do them justice here, we can use some of them to illustrate Coleridge’s double parallel of the Albatross and Mariner to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
We see both the Albatross and the Mariner used as a parallel to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, albeit in different ways not totally elucidated in their meaning by Coleridge. We first are lead to believe that the Albatross, a pure and good natural omen for the crew members, symbolizes the senseless death of Christ at the hands of those he loved. Upon first sight of the bird many Christian parallels are made, “At length did cross and Albatross:/Through the fog it came;/As if it had been a Christian soul,/We hailed it in God’s name” (I. 73-76). The reference to the cross is unmistakably Christian and the crew members hail the bird as if it were Christ coming to deliver them from darkness into the light.
However, we also see the crew members hail the Albatross as if it were a good omen, one that can deliver them from sin (getting lost in the fog). However, the mariner for no explained reason in the test, kills the Albatross. Yet, once again Christian imagery is used to reinforce the theme of Christ’s sacrifice for man on the cross, “With my cross-bow/I shot the ALBATROSS” (I. 92). The crew members are rendered senseless by this seemingly inhumane action. However, the Albatross again seems to symbolize Ch
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