Guilt follows you // Raygan Boster

     In the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the Mariner shoots the albatross that has helped them with a crossbow. It then says,

 "Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks

Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung."

    His shipmates blamed him for their terrible fortune in the sea and forced him to take responsibility for it. By hanging the Albatross around his neck, it was a constant reminder of what he had done. His shipmates later died in front of him, which probably only added to the guilt. 

"Alone, alone, all, all alone,

Alone on a wide wide sea! 

And never a saint took pity on

My soul in agony."

    Him being alone at sea is yet another reminder of the mistake he made. I know that in life, the same thing can happen to us. We have to face the consequences of our actions and we could feel so incredibly guilty, and it weighs us down, like the Albatross around his neck. Sometimes living through the consequences is worse than death, which is what we have to do. He never would have thought that shooting that Albatross with his crossbow would have led to all of the misfortune he encountered, but he still had to pay for it. 

    For us, our debt is paid for us already. All we have to do is take the "Albatross" off of our neck, hand it to God, learn from it, and move on. The Mariner told his story to others who needed to hear it, which is exactly what we need to do as well. Tell others about what we have walked through and what mistakes we have made so they can do better than we did and not have to face the hardships we went through because of those mistakes. 

I commented on Samantha Tedder and Bug's post

Comments

  1. Bug OlsenOctober 19, 2021 at 12:14 AM

    I think the Albatross is a great symbol for guilt in multiple different ways. It's one of my favorite symbols and comes up frequently throughout modern literature and music, such as "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Iron Maiden and "The Weight of Living" by Bastille. It is extremely famous and works in both a Christian sense as well as a secular one in multiple different occasions.

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  2. Braylan StringfellowOctober 19, 2021 at 8:49 AM

    Killing the albatross really did eat the mariner up from the inside. All of those terrible things that happened to him since the albatross died did only make matters worse for the state of guilt he was in. You are right on how we can be from that guilt we have by getting rid of the “albatross” in our life. In the story thing didn’t start getting better for the mariner until he got rid of the albatross.

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