How does S.T. Coleridge create an atmosphere of mystery in his poem 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'?

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Thomas Rolfe        Year 11        English

How does S.T. Coleridge create and atmosphere of mystery in his poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’?

        In this poem an old sailor tells a story to a wedding guest.   The story tells us about a voyage and how the sailor shoots the Albatross, the crew die and he gets back to his homeland.   The title ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ creates a lot more mystery rather than ‘The Story of the Old Sailor’.

        Part one

In section one the ancient mariner stops just one of three people.   This makes us ponder on why he just stopped one of three people.   Also by talking in present tense it makes you feel as if you are actually in the poem.   The contrast of an old man and a young man is quite strange as normally they would not have even talked.   The Mariner is hypnotic because it says ‘he holds him with his skinny hand’.   It then goes on to say ‘The wedding guest stood still, and listens like a three years’ child: the Mariner hath his will’.   The sailors were scared of the storm as it seemed alive.   The Mariner says ‘he was tyrannous and strong’.   The wind blew them south into the cold and icy South Pole.   He relates the ice to be ‘as green as emerald’.   By repeating things it gives a good effect as when he says ‘the ice was here, the ice was there, the ice was all around’.   Coleridge also uses onomato-poeia when he uses words like cracked, growled, roared, howled and swound.   They had found an Albatross and got lucky with it as ice cracked and they were able to get free from the ice.   The Mariner killed the bird that made the breeze to blow.

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Part two

The sailors soon change their tone when they say ‘twas right, such birds to slay, that bring the fog and mist’.   Coleridge repeats things again as he says ‘down dropt the breeze the sails dropt down’.   You can get the feeling of how empty and quiet it was when it says ‘and we did speak only to break the silence of the sea!’.   He uses good descriptions of the sky when he mentions ‘the bloody Sun, at noon,’.   Another good description is when it says ‘as idle as a painted ship upon ...

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