The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Death-in-Life means to be living in a constant fear or thought of death, or a feeling that the soul is damned but the body remains. Life-in-Death suggests the idea that the soul will continue but the body will deteriorate. In the poem “the Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the paradox of death-in-life and life-in-death is a consistent theme throughout this piece of literature. The sailor’s corpses, the constant aging of the mariner’s body and the gamble of death and life suggest this theme in Coleridge’s poem.
When a person’s heart stops pumping blood, the average amount of time for the body to start decomposing is four to six days. This average is dependent upon the temperature the body is kept; if it is hot and in the sun the body will decompose much faster than in colder climates. In Coleridge’s poem the sailor’s bodies are in the sun for seven days, yet they refuse to be subjected to the ravages of time. “The many men so beautiful / and they all dead did lie / and a thousand thousand slimy things lived on; / and so did I / …
The cold sweat melted from their limbs / nor rot or reek did they: / the look with which they looked on me / had never passed away / … Seven days, seven nights, / I saw that curse and yet could not die” (Coleridge, IV, 1817). The sailor’s corpses stay intact while their souls escape, leaving the mariner with the visible token of the living death that awaits. The wedding Guest proclaims to fear the Mariner because he looks so skinny and aged. “I fear thee and thy glittering eye, / And thy skinny hand, so brown. Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest! / This body dropt not down. / Alone, alone, all, all alone, / Alone on a wide wide sea! / And never a saint took pity on / My soul in agony” (Coleridge, IV, 1817). The Mariner explains that his soul is trapped in his body and his body will continue to age but will never rot enough to release his spirit. In “the Rime of the Ancient Mariner” the Mariner explains to the Wedding Guest of how his soul came to be doomed. He explains that when he was on the ship with his crew that he saw another ship approaching.
This brought hope to the whole crew because they thought that their bodies were going to be saved. When the ship approached, the Mariner saw that it was Death and Life-in-Death. “Her lips were red, her looks were free, / Her locks were yellow as gold: / Her skin was as white as leprosy, / The Night-mare Life-in-Death was she, / Who thicks man’s blood with cold. / The naked hulk alongside came, / And the twain were casting dice; / ‘The game is done! I’ve won! I’ve won! ‘ / Quoth she, and whistles thrice” (Coleridge, III, 1817).
With Life-in-Death’s three whistles she eliminates the sunlight and replaces it with dark shadows. She took the lives of the men on the ship, except for that of the Mariner’s. She cursed him with an eternity of living death. He is condemned to walk to the Earth and tell his tale to whomever will listen. The symbolic interpretation when death and life in death went to steal the Mariner’s soul; is that of arriving on a ship, when in biblical terms wood means death and water means life.
Life in death ironically wins the soul of the mariner. In “the Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Death in Life and Life in Death is a constant contradicting theme throughout this metaphorical anecdote. The mythical preservation of the sailor’s bodies, the damnation of the Mariner’s soul, and the gamble between death and life-in-death truly remind the audience of this continuous theme.
Works Cited
http://poetry.eserver.org/ancient-mariner.html
