Guilt sin and penance

• 'penance done and penance more shall do'


  • the mariner can never repay for his sins
  • he is condemned to eternal suffering
• 'nor turn them up to pray'


  • absolution evades him
  • can never be formally detached from his sins
  • become completely detached from god because of his sins of not loving nature
• 'dropped down one by one'


  • mariners sin leads him to be isolated by his crew
  • leaves him to reflect upon his sins
• The act of killing the Albatross is a sin as it can be seen as a transgression against God
• 'I had done a hellish thing'


  • confession to killing the albatross
  • acknowledges this but doesn't repent
  • leads us to question why
  • may possibly not feel guilt
• 'There passed a weary time...each throat was parched'


  • Seems to be in a catatonic state
  • living coma
  • punishment for sin
• 'Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung'


  • completely damned
  • restricted and weighed down by the weight of his sin
  • he's made a pariah
  • actively expelled from society
• 'And every soul... like the whizz of my crossbow'


  • death has won the crew as they didn't sin
  • whizz of the arrow which shot the bird is echoed and haunts him
  • life and death is beginning her punishment
• 'O shreive me, shrieve me holy man!'


  • repetition implies mariner's desperation to escape from his punishment
  • and wants his confession to be heard and not necessarily to be forgiven
  • acknowledges by the end that his actions were wrong
• 'I have strange power of speech...i know the man that must hear me'


  • he has an almost supernatural power to make people listen
  • acknowledges his wrongdoing and hopes to warn against it
  • possibly in order to repent
• ' A weary time! A weary time!'

  • repetition conveys passing of time as slow and painful
  • frustrated at purgatorial state
• 'never a saint took pity on my soul in agony'

  • beginning his journey to remorse and redemption
  • experiencing the wrath of divine powers
• 'doth walk in fear and dread'

  • mariners fears are unmovable regarding both guilt and the pursuit of crime in the text
• 'He'll shrieve my soil he'll wash away the albatross' blood'

  • hermit can help the mariner heal and repent
  • however similar to characters such as lady macbeth the blood will never truly be gone
• 'The devil knows how to row'

  • referred to as devil as he is tainted with sin