The Ancient Mariner
: Arguments
OVERVIEW
BEYOND THE MORAL
The poem's moral
Moral categories are inadequate
Coleridge's subsequent anxiety over the poem
The limitations of the Mariner's language
Beyond the irrational
GUILT
The Mariner's motiveless guilt
Coleridge's dread
Coleridge's relation to his parents
Studies of childhood bereavement
Guilt and dread
Childhood omnipotence of thought
Backward projection
DEATH
Regression to the arbitrary
Thraldom to death
Response to trauma
The horror of stasis
The breakout from stasis
The fiend
The fragility of the Mariner's resolution
The Mariner's repetition compulsion
A SURVIVOR
The struggle for meaning
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