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Rime of the Ancient Mariner & Frankenstein

Jung writes that "every step toward the greater consciousness is a kind of Promethean guilt: through knowledge, the gods are, as it were, robbed of their fire, that is the property of the unconscious is torn out if its natural context and subordinated to the whims of the conscious mind."

I believe that this notion is present in both "Frankenstein" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" in that knowledge plays a big part, thematically, in both works. 'Frankenstein' deals with it obviously in that we see what happens when man goes too far with what we have learned and what happens when maybe we can't handle what we know because we have distorted the pure by transforming our passions into something horrible all for the quest of, and as a result of, knowledge. In "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", we see an innocence lost when the Wedding Guest hears the lesson the Mariner has to tell about the Albatross. In this learning we are taught the meaning of 'ignorance is bliss' in that the Wedding Guest, as well as the Mariner, now has to take responsibility for knowledge and realize that consequences are born from knowledge-even indirectly. He leaves the scene with knowledge, stained, "He went like one that hath been stunned, and is of sense forlorn: A sadder and a wiser man, he rose the morrow morn. (Coleridge, 18)

When Mary Shelley was very young, she heard Coleridge recite the famous "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" which would later be referenced many times in Frankenstein.

At the very beginning of the novel, Mary Shelley's educational experiences and love of literary research are told through Walden, the arctic explorer.

"My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study day and night" (Shelley, 2).

"These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, these poets whose effusions entranced my soul and lifted it to heaven. I also became a poet and for one year lived in a p...

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Rime of the Ancient Mariner & Frankenstein. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 09:27, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1695688.html