Close Readings of Literary Texts
T.S. Eliot 'The Dry Salvages' (1941)
By Amelia Loughland & Bridget MoyleIn writing water, TS Eliot’s ‘The Dry Salvages’ muses upon the ability to exist outside of human temporality, the possibility of which is modelled through an extended metaphor of the ocean and river. In doing so, Eliot offers a strikingly new materialist vision through his recognition of water’s agency, communicative power and distinct material experience that both transcends human attempts at its control or marginalisation. In five shifting sections, Eliot thematises these watery characteristics in adjacency to conceptualisations of time through a narrative that develops to consider the nexus between the construct of time and water.
The first section considers the divine agency of water in structured free-verse as the bodies of river and sea are deified beyond typical anthropocentric tropology. Whilst the river becomes the monotheistic “strong brown God,” the sea is described in polyphonic plurality as embodying “many gods and many voices”. The contrast is a salient one and perhaps has much to do with the spatiality that these respective bodies reside within. Eliot writes of an ocean that is found, omnipresent, across topographies, symbolically “all about us” along shore lines and rock pools, but also as surrounding various figurations of human. The river rather is constrained collectively “within us”, and although this still lends to it (in a vision of anthropocentrism) a hallowed, integral vitality, it also delineates the river and describes it as a medium innately aligned with the human. However, adjacency, Eliot asserts, does not represent equivalence. Despite his portrayal of river water through the capitalist paradigm as a “conveyor of commerce” or something that is diminutively a “problem” for a “builder of bridges”, human characters remain entirely de-identified. Through the pejorative synecdoche of “worshippers of the machine” and “dwellers in cities,” Eliot chides an arrogant human approach that dismisses water’s distinct power and presence in human society. To illustrate this criticism, the poet embarks on an accumulative illustration of the myriad ways in which water has quietly infiltrated human life, most notably with reference to other inter-connected organic elements such as “the rank ailanthus of the April dooryard / In the smell of grapes of on the autumn table”. Moreover, Eliot observes that water is not just a passive presence in human life but is a constitutive agent (to adopt Barad’s terminology), as alluded to by the images of “shattered lobsterpot, the broken oar/And the gear of foreign dead men”. Through allusion to this destructive potential, Eliot emphasises that water defies attempts to be relegated to utilitarian human purposes but is irrevocably entangled in a collective and transcorporeal materiality.
However, it is pertinent to recognise that in the poem’s subsequent sections, Eliot’s attention makes salient the ocean, rather than the river. This implementation of the anthropo-logic of hierarchies is foreshadowed in the previously mentioned ascription of a multi-deity persona to the ocean. Arguably intended to symbolise the multifaceted power and qualities of the sea, the conceit returns to a formalised human power-structure, whether physical or metaphysical. Although the possibility of watery-dialects are subsequently denied through Eliot’s negation of the formulation of the river, he does envisage a rich account of an oceanic language. The agency of salt water is lent a distinct voice, to which the human poet adopts a passive tone in contrast, “the sea howl and the sea yelp are different voices often together heard: the whine in the rigging, the menace and caress of wave that breaks on water”. Here, Eliot explicitly cedes agency to water’s distinct, yet multifarious, voices. In ‘hearing’ water in both human rope rigging as well as the undefinable sound of a wave breaking, Eliot encourages an eco-diegetic recognition of water speaking for itself rather than being heard (or amplified) only in objects of human creation. It is inferred, through the restraint of Eliot’s rhyming sestets in the second part of the poem and his appropriation of the angelus (a Catholic prayer) in the fourth, that there is a certain embodied meditative and spiritual understanding that is reached through an eco-diegetic relation to water. Yet again however, ‘The Dry Salvages’ emphasises the vitality of the ocean over other water bodies and, in returning to the particular connotative resonance of the angelus, appears to align the sea’s natural cycles with human ritual and spirituality.
The inherent tension that this hierarchy imbues in the poem is strategically aligned with the apparently infinite material contradictions of water itself. After all, it is water, Eliot notes, that places “salt […]on the briar rose” and lays “fog […] in the fir trees”. The movement and impact of water beyond its corporeal form is recognised in ‘The Dry Salvages’ through its capacity to transmute into a receptacle for human misuse. The chiasmus, “we cannot think of a time that is oceanless / Or of an ocean not littered with wastage”, and the personification of the river carrying a “cargo of dead negroes, cows and chicken coops,” reflects upon the (amoral) decay carried by waterways. In this sense, Eliot undermines the narrative of destructive water, instead emphasising its communicative capacity to preserve the abuses of its environment and evidence of its underlying (negative) connectedness with human life. It is valuable also to note that the chiasmus previously referenced allies “time” with “wastage”, supporting Eliot’s poetic thesis that attempts to unbind water from the needless formulations of time. The poet defies an anthropocentric interpretation through his alternative labelling of a “ragged rock” – as variously a “monument” or “seamark” before arriving at the conclusion that it simply “is what is always is”. In the digressive formulation of his writing, Eilot achieves a model for ecological thinking that isolates conventional paradigms before subsequently undoing them. Interestingly, in compelling the reader to step outside of time and envisage a new realm of non-time (with neither a future nor a past), Eliot merges the ocean with contradictorily definitive human landmarks in order to define water in a relational dialogue. The passing time on a boat is defined, according to Eliot, by a “furrow that widens behind you,” and yet ‘furrow’ is connotative of the permanence of an earthy trench, and not the fluid temporalities of the water to which he writes. Additionally, the poem concludes with a concession, the volta “we, content at the last/ if our temporal reversion nourish/ […] the life of a significant soil” partially relinquishes the possibility of an a-temporal ideology. The human physicality embodies the hydro-like qualities of amorphous shifting, and yet at death it is relegated to a fixed spatiality.
To this end, the salvages 1 remain dry. Eliot’s acts of eco-mimesis and writing to a new materialist conception of water are provocative, yet partial. Water is partitioned and demarcated at the poem’s conclusion in respect to the primacy of land and soil. The voice of water seems to disappear with the surrender of his dream for an a-temporal conception of life and its systems. However, this catalyses an important meditation on the interconnected nature of ecology beyond how it is defined in ‘The Dry Salvages’. Are watery borders and architectures possible to define? Correspondingly, how might water embody more than its conventional states? Ultimately, in a landscape that Eliot could not disengage from temporality, could water also have a certain innate timeliness to it – could it therefore have memories?
1. This image assumes that Eliot’s poem does in fact derive its name from a group of rocks off the coast of Massachusetts, as the poem’s preface notes.
Read the text online here: www.davidgorman.com/4Quartets/3-salvages.htm
The River in Chapter One of Mireille Juchau’s The World Without Us (Bloomsbury, 2015)
By Eva Claire & Ella HoweThe opening chapter Mireille Juchau’s The World Without Us is set by a river. The river is the fictionalised Repentance River, but the setting, the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, is both real and visceral, and comes to act almost as another character as the novel progresses. This opening chapter sees Jim, a newcomer just three months into living in a tiny village in the Bidgalong Valley, come across his neighbour Evangeline Müller while walking in the mountains. She is slowly undressing, and preparing to swim in the river. In this scene, readers are not simply introduced to characters and setting; instead, the characters and their respective relationships to the river allows for exploration of a complex set of power dynamics in the intricate relationships between place, self, and others.
These two characters, Jim and Evangeline, interact with the natural world around them through a bodily insertion on the landscape. The chapter is heavily focalised through Jim, and his interaction with the natural world is a violent, land-centric experience - “As he entered the glade, his heavy boots shattered sticks and dry leaves…” (page 3) – and when he encounters the river he is unable to make sense of it: “He scanned the river, guessing the distance from here to the falls, the septh and speed of the flow, (…) The river, beyond his reckoning.” Crucially, however, the river “seemed as cryptic as the woman readying herself to swim in it” (page 5).
This conflation of figure of the woman with the water that Jim notes is, of course, the most striking aspect of Juchau’s opening chapter. Compared to the radically unknowable natural environment that Jim experiences, Evangeline’s place in this landscape, the readers are told, is an established one. The narrator tells readers that “she’d spent her childhood in the nearby commune”, and therefore knew of the most tranquil swimming places. However, as Jim elaborates:
“the river was broad here, then narrowed sharply as it flowed towards the cliff. You could hear the cascades, a two-hundred-meter drop… you could feel the earth’s tremor from the force of the falling current” (page 4).
Jim and Evangeline are, therefore, equally aware of the danger of the water. The difference between their respective interactions with this possibility of danger is therefore crucial in establishing their relationship. Jim, as newcomer, is frightened by the water, whereas Evangeline, whose intimate bodily implication with the water extends back through time, understands the intricacies of the water and how to navigate it.
It is in this more dangerous swimming spot, where danger reflects Evangeline’s heightened emotional state, that she chooses to enter the water. She removes her clothes, leaving them heaped on the riverbank, and her naked body (“even in the river mud she was imperial” (page 6)) is submerged completely for several seconds, before she resurfaces further down the river. Despite the apparent rapid movement of the river, as indicated by the crashing falls nearby, there is a stillness to the river as it reflects the sky (page 5).
The name of the river, Repentance, is significant in ways that are, at this stage in the novel, only hinted at: it is insinuated that Evangeline is grieving the loss of a child, and yet it remains, at this stage, unexplained. Therefore a swim in the Repentance River indicates, on a superficial level, the promise of redemption and an end to Evangeline’s as-yet unelaborated grief.
Despite the grandiosity Jim reads into Evangeline’s entrance into the water, there is, as yet, no epiphanic experience in entering the river. Despite the water’s forward movement, Evangeline “seems to be treading water, paused – or waiting. Her face, with the hair slicked off, more vulnerable” (page 8). As yet, Jim is unable to read the river, or Evangeline – he, therefore, is unable to see if any repentance is provided by the water. He can read only her vulnerability, and her connection with the river of her childhood.
By his inability to read Evangeline, nor fully understand the significance of her relationship to the river, a power dynamic between Jim and Evangeline is established. Jim, at one point, awkwardly sticks his hand in the water and is able to only comment its temperature (page 5). He is unable to understand the river complexly, and therefore is powerless as he faces it, a powerless that extends to Evangeline as she enters the water. Evangeline, on the other hand, manoeuvres comfortably in the dangerously fast-running water. In this way, the power dynamic between the two is established: in understanding and knowing the radical unknowable landscape, and in appreciating its redemptive and transformative powers, Evangeline is privy to a deeper understanding of nature, and therefore a more powerful position, than the newcomer, Jim.
'The Woman Who Was Water' by Enid Dame (2010)
The woman who was water
lived on the edges of rooms,
knew when to withdraw.
The woman who was water
came to Brooklyn,
and filled every basement.
The woman who was water
left all of her lovers
clean.
The woman who was water
insisted no one understood her,
saw herself gentle as mist,
a rain-pearly morning, a sweet lilac fog.
So, when she battered at shingles,
gnawed through foundations,
burst out of pipes,
she knew she was offering love.
Why didn’t people want it?
The woman who was water
was not analytical.
She knew three things:
They couldn’t pass laws against her.
They couldn’t declare her harmless.
They couldn’t exist without her.
The woman who was water
could power a city,
or drown it.
By Çhrista Jessica Tulong & Raymond May
Throughout the poem, there is the inevitable anthropocentric perspective that occurs due to the metaphoric connection between water and woman. As such, water is inherently 'humanized' yet, Dame's poem at least softens this idea by inverting the usual personification of nature as human to human or woman as nature. This similarly emphasizes the integral role of women in the reproductive cycle as well as asserting women as an exploited, dominated resource, as is water. As Dominic Head would argue, this is unavoidable. Christa and I have critically analysed the poem and deconstructed each stanza, drawing different possible interpretations and analysing it in terms of the nature concept of naturecultures.
In Stanza 1, The notions of living “on the edges of rooms” connotes a pushing away, a rejection of ‘the woman.’ Similarly, “to withdraw” Dame could be implying submission to a higher authority (perhaps men). Krishnaraj poses a question: “To what extent does women's representation in decision-making bodies empower them or does it only reinforce traditional social hierarchies in subtle ways? Does the emergence of women's visibility in the public sphere hold the promise of emancipation and greater gender equality?” (p.37)
In Stanza 2, the author is speaking about the woman who was water arriving to fill up Brooklyn. I believe this can be linked to the fact that the woman who was water came to Brooklyn to be used as a benefit to the public. The fact that she “filled every basement” could connote a notion of slavery upon women, who often work as public servants for the general public. A quote by Taittiriya Samhita states, “Apo hi stha macjobhuvas” and this translates to: “Water is the greatest sustainer and hence is like a mother.” Archer (p.23) states that “The above quote illustrates two issues that urgently need attention. First, the importance of water to sustaining life, and second, the recognition of the link between water and women. The world is experiencing a life-threatening water shortage.” Similarly, Krishnaraj states that “There are some who now argue that treating water as a public good …[it] has the characteristics of an "impure" public good. Public goods are those that benefit not just an individual but once provided can benefit others as a free good - for example, roads.” (p.39) This reinforces the notion that women were used for the benefit of others. This ties into Stanza 3.
Krishnaraj states that “the issue [of water] has become important because we are at a time in history when we are facing a crisis of shrinking water resources, mainly due to overexploitation.” (p.37). Krishnaraj could be implying that due to exploitation, we are facing a crisis of shrinking water resources. This ties into Stanza 3, where the ‘woman’ leaves “all of her lovers clean,” possibly implying that she is being exploited by her lovers (who could be men) to keep them clean, like water. With regards to exploitation, this is supported by King’s statement about hatred of women and hatred towards nature in misogynistic societies are “intimately connected and mutually reinforcing” (quoted in Tunc 115). Tunc (2013) explained that the connection between hatred of women and hatred of nature has led to American feminist poets using representations that are related to nature as a counternarrative that seeks to dismantle pre-existing “hierarchical binaries” that exploits nature and prevents social equality for women at the same time. Hayman comments that “Women are depicted in a quite different way from men—not because the feminine is different from the masculine—but because the ‘ideal’ spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him.” The notion of leaving all of her lovers “clean” could imply what Hayman is saying about flattering a man, hence satisfying his desires.
From Stanza 4 onwards, Dame begins to portray a sharp contrast in the woman’s nature, juxtaposing her softness and roughness. Christa and I thought of the analogy of teaching. Teachers have to show tough love, meaning they have to be kind but also cruel to students for their own learning benefits. Similarly, the paradox of tough love can be seen in the last lines of Stanza 4, “saw herself gentle as mist, a rain-pearly morning, a sweet lilac fog” where she is being kind, and in the whole of Stanza 5 “So, when she battered at shingles, gnawed through foundations, burst out of pipes,” where she is being rough. Shingles are clusters of small rocks near the seashore. The lines “battered at shingles, gnawed through foundations, burst out of pipes” represent the strength of women. These are depictions of water where the water requires tremendous force. From the second line in stanza 5 up until the last line in stanza 6, Dame shows us the strength of water, that it crashes against the shore (‘battered at shingles’), erodes foundations (‘gnawed through foundations’) and literally “burst out of pipes”. This can be compared to the strength of women in numbers. As opposed to Hayman’s bottled water, where the thoughts and voices of a woman are contained and they are expected to remain passive and submissive, the stanza implies that the woman who was water is more active and forceful than passive. This leads to the rhetorical question that is posed in the final line of stanza 6. Back to the analogy of teaching, as teachers, when you are too lenient students will take advantage of that and try to get away with anything. Whereas, when you are being harsh, you intimidate the students. Likewise, the woman who was water, despite her genuine intentions of “offering love” people might not have wanted it due to her strength hence felt intimidated by it. The last 2 lines of the stanza 6 represent the issue with when a woman tries to be powerful by standing up for herself, other people may perceive her as being intimidating or too loud.
According to Bulajich, “women are responsible for the domestic use of water” and “are still often excluded from both environmental and river basin development projects. For example, planners of projects related to soil conservation, agricultural extension, and credit for water conservation activities seldom include women or women's groups in the planning stage. In most irrigation projects, land and water rights are vested in the male head of the household, leaving women without the land or water to grow the staple foods essential for family health.” (p.2) Women were responsible for the provision of family necessities particularly in relation to accessing and maintaining clean water yet they are excluded from infrastructure projects that aim to promote healthier lifestyles. Another possible interpretation of the last line in Stanza 6 may have some relation to the purity of water, hence the purity of a woman.
Hayman further reinforces the purity of water. She relates that “a provocative link between the positions and treatment of women in Western culture and the treatment of nature (water).” (p.25) “Water, which had been perceived as the feminine element of nature, in the nineteenth century was tied to a new ‘hygenic’ image of woman...” (p.27) That being said, Hayman speaks about water circulating through indoor plumbing and that the nude became the symbol of a new fantasy of sexual intimacy. (p.27) Another interesting concept Hayman brings out is the bottled water, how it “is a contained and passive water, and is thus desirable. It is water that is marketed by its claim to be pure, uncontaminated, and youth- and health-enhancing.” (p.27) Hayman’s view on the water in regards to sexual intimacy and purity can be associated with the way women are restricted in terms of expressing their sexuality. This is because bottled water and water circulating through indoor plumbing can be seen as a representation of the societal expectations for women to contain themselves as opposed to being able to express themselves freely. Furthermore, the concept of containment can also be linked to purity, where women are expected to maintain purity through saving their virginity until marriage. Dame’s poem expresses the stigma faced by women who are not virgin in the lines “she knew she was offering love/Why didn’t people want it?”, in which it is implied that members of society denies women who lost their virginity and they are perceived as impure. Returning to Hayman’s representation of water and women in the lines of Stanza 6, “So, when she battered at shingles,/gnawed through foundations/burst out of pipes”, these lines can be seen as depicting women trying to fight back the expectations of maintaining purity/fighting for their right to express themselves.
One striking aspect in the last three stanzas of Enid Dame’s poem is the two different views of the water imagery used to describe women. Dame illustrates how women are like water in regards to its role in sustaining life, specifically in the process of procreation. This is shown in the lines “They couldn't exist without her” and “The woman who was water could power a city”. This is supported by Tunc’s (2013) observation of (post)confessional poetry, where fluids/liquids “literally and metaphorically sustain the flow of life” by being a catalyst of childbirth (amniotic fluid and blood) (114). Tunc (2013) also highlights that life would not exist if “’rivers of menstrual blood’, ‘breaking of waters during childbirth’, ‘nourishing milk of a mother’s breast’, and ‘sweat, tears, and toil of women’s work’” did not exist (114). In addition, Grosz stated that women’s bodies can also be used to represent the life cycle (menstruation, pregnancy, motherhood, menopause) because they are “’lived’ bodies” that have the potential to cover all aspects of birth and death (quoted in Tunc 122).
While the water imagery is used to depict women’s role in procreation and caretaking, Dame also compares women’s strength in dismantling pre-existing conventions with water. The line in stanza 9 “couldn’t pass laws against her” implies the limits that society (men) try to force on “the woman who was water” by “passing laws against her”, which aimed to silence her for their own boundaries. The boundaries that silence women led Donna Haraway to come up with the concept of naturecultures, where Haraway is not just concerned with the reversal of gender roles by depicting ‘mother nature’ but also how this depiction does not challenge the male/female binary which tends to favour more phallocentric views of knowledge (quoted in Merrick 102). Merrick also adds another key aspect of naturecultures requires revealing theories and scientific facts are marked by particular histories of sex, race, and class (103). Form this finding, it is implied that naturecultures requires deconstruction of these aspects in order to restore to egalitarian premises. The need to restore to egalitarian levels is implied in the last line “drowning a city”, which emphasises women’s strength when they are involved in collective action.
Essentially, what I have in mind is the following lines have two ways of depicting the power of women:
cannot be declared harmless: this line tells us that women’s power is dangerous, which is why there are efforts in restricting it + Tunc’s article mentions about how women and the environment share an aspect in common where both of them are exploited, hence why oppressive structures against women are put in the first place. However, what’s interesting is that restricting power doesn’t work because the poem also mentions “They couldn't pass laws against her” which indicates that women have the capacity to fight back.
drowning a city *very last line* : emphasis on women’s strength)
“couldn’t pass laws against her” - examine what boundaries are being drawn in a particular environment, who these boundaries are being drawn by, and who they benefit.
perhaps this shows the boundaries that society (men) try to impose on the ‘woman who was water’ by “passing laws against her” to silence her and use her for their own boundaries. This links to the following statement
deconstruct these hierarchies and return ontological, epistemological and representational biases to more egalitarian premises.
naturecultures breaks down these divisions, the biases, the ontology, these hierarchies of men always being on top and women being nothing but passive supporters. It breaks them to more egalitarian levels as the last line “drowning a city” connotes a strong emphasis on women’s strength.
Findings from Merrick’s chapter on naturecultures and feminist materialism:
Plumwood elaborated on how the concept of naturecultures was initially from Donna Haraway’s challenge towards feminist scholars (specifically those who are in the field of cultural theory and ecofeminists). Haraway was concerned about how nature is depicted using the “feminine, woman, and (a feminized) ‘mother nature’”, this is due to the fact that while it’s intended to challenge the masculine domination of nature it doesn’t really solve the problem with the gendered binaries (Haraway has an issue with depicting nature as “mother nature”/feminine subjects because reversing the role using a feminine subject does not challenge the gender binary. (quoted in Merrick 102)
“At the heart of this nondualist conception of nature is a refusal to divide reality (ontology) and human understanding of it (epistemology) into separate spheres of human/nature, culture/ nature, or human/non-human. Such a position demands attention to the ways in which both the sciences and humanities disciplines understand and construct nature, as well as relating such constructions to material reality” (Merrick 103)
Merrick also stated that Haraway’s perspective on how ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ cannot be separated drew criticism from environmentalists and scientists. Davison noted that Haraway’s concept of naturecultures received criticism from environmental advocates because it is seen as blurring the limits between culture and nature and between technology and ecology (quoted in Merrick 103)
Also from Merrick (p103): “A key consequence of thinking in terms of naturecultures is the need to reveal how scientific facts and theories are also marked by specific histories of race, class, and sex, rather than being objective representations of an external ‘reality’. The sciences, like all forms of human knowledge, are for Haraway another kind of ‘story-telling practice’”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' (1798)
By Sophie McGing & Caitlin Stibbard
In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge positions us as the readers to question the predominant anthropocentric view of an assumed human superiority amongst living and non-living beings. Coleridge’s work is a hybrid of a cautionary tale which warns against human interference and a Romantic poem, which portrays the sublimity and value of nature. In this poem, Coleridge warns humans of the folly of attempting to restrict or dominate natural forces, but also ultimately presents nature as a forgiving entity offering redemption to humankind despite the various abuses they have imposed upon the landscape.
The poem focuses on the experiences of the protagonist, the nameless “mariner” in his exploration of the open seas. The decision by Coleridge to employ anonymity in regards to the mariner suggests that the mariner himself is reflective of humanity more generally, particularly in relation to the complex relationship between the human world and the natural world. Although nature is initially represented as predictable and manageable “the sun came up on the left”, nature begins to show its own power, shown through the wind which is personified as “tyrannous and strong.” Nature, mainly the ice, is depicted as beautiful through the use of simile whereby the icebergs are compared to “emeralds” suggesting a preciousness, however nature is also presented as dangerous, imposing and immediately threatening, “the ice was here/the ice was there/the ice was all around.” Through the use of onomatopoeia, Coleridge depicts the harshness of the ocean. He selected animalistic noises to depict this, “[the ice] cracked and growled, and roared and howled!” Through this, the ocean is given living qualities that are not necessarily friendly or inviting, but are inherently reflective of the non-human kind that appears more closely linked with nature; the animal kingdom.
However, from the looming threat of a seemingly malicious ocean emerges an albatross, symbolically representative of benevolent aspect of the oceanic world. The (objectively adorable) Albatross has over time become emblematic of hope of success for sailors and mariners, with multiple superstitions surrounding them. Primarily, the Albatross is believed to carry the souls of dead sailors, and therefore to kill an Albatross is akin to murdering a fellow seaman. Coleridge alludes to this sacred superstition by endowing the Albatross with a “Christian soul” which the mariners “hailed in god’s name.” In this section of the poem, Coleridge depicts the ocean as a symbol of a marginal space, occupied successfully by the human and non-human. Through the Albatross, the mariner, representative of humanity is permitted to engage respectfully with the natural world. This interconnection is represented through the ambiguity of the “helmsman” who “steered us through!” after “the ice did split with a thunder-fit” as Coleridge is purposefully ambiguous as to whether the literal human helmsman was responsible, or the metaphorical helmsman; the Albatross. Regardless, Coleridge is making an explicit social commentary here; human kindness will be rewarded with the benevolence of the natural world.
Arguably more impassioned than his comment on the necessity of human respect for the natural world is Coleridge’s accusation that this interconnectedness is made impossible due to human selfishness and senselessness. Despite the positive omen of the Albatross, and the calm oceanic conditions which the seamen superstitiously attribute to the presence of the Albatross, the mariner admits to mindlessly murdering the seabird “With my cross-bow/I shot the ALBATROSS.” Following this heinous act, the mariners experience sudden and unaccountable changes in the weather and conditions. With the absence of the “the bird/That made the breeze to blow”, the ship becomes “as idle as a painted ship/Upon a painted ocean.” The ocean itself taunts the mariner, a watery body that offers no compassion to the parched seaman “Water, water, every where/Nor any drop to drink.” Coleridge references to “slimy things did crawl with legs/Upon the slimy sea” creates an uninviting image of the ocean as dangerous and grotesque, while the symbolism of “the water, like witch’s oils” connotes the supernatural aspect of the ocean inflicting these conditions on the men. The seamen are rendered helpless, “And every tongue, through utter drought,/Was withered at the root;/We could not speak, no more than if/We had been choked with soot.” These conditions are blamed on the Mariner, who as a result is punished by his fellow seaman by having the Albatross hung around his neck. Most significantly, the Albatross replaces a “cross”, which suggests Coleridge is making a connection between a relationship lost with nature as being a relationship lost with God.
However, towards the poems conclusion, Nature appears to offer the mariner a chance at redemption. As opposed to the “slimy things” the mariner formerly speaks of, his perception drastically changes as he observes the water snakes, in their “rich attire: blue, glossy green, and velvet black.” His perception of their beauty is clearly represented, when he exclaims “O happy, living things!/No tongue/Their beauty might declare/A spring of love gushed from my heart/And I blessed them unaware.” Following this exclamation, the mariner is metaphorically alleviated of his guilt, “from my neck so free/The Albatross fell off, and sank/Like lead into the sea.” The characterisation of the Mariner as an anthropocentric figure is then undermined, as his experiences have led him to reconsider the privileged position humans assume to possess. He instead becomes a figure representative of biocentrism, whereby all living things have an inherent value. Biblical allusions feature throughout the poem, and are particularly pivotal in capturing the Mariner’s change in perception, “He prayeth well, who loveth well/Both man and bird and beast/He prayeth best, who loveth best/All things both great and small;/For the dear God who loveth us,/He made and loveth all.”
In Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge positions us as readers to reconsider and challenge the predominant anthropocentric approach to “being” that permeates through humankind’s collective consciousness. Through the exemplary use of poetic devices such as imagery and metaphor, Coleridge represents nature as both a mysterious and beautiful entity, and a harsh and unrelenting force, capable of securing either humanity’s survival or their demise. Coleridge depicts both the power and powerlessness of nature, the unwarranted murder of the albatross a symbol of helplessness, contrasted with the strength of the ocean to determine the seamen’s survival following the unjustifiable act of violence. These themes have an enduring relevance, as nature continues to exist in a liminal space, whereby it is simultaneously destructive and destroyed. In order to understand this paradox, one needs only to consider that it is the same ocean that produces Tsunami’s which devastate beachside homes, that mercilessly suffers at the hands of human impact and pollution.
