"Moby Dick" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

Paper Summary:

A discussion of the similarities and differences between Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' and Herman Melville's 'Moby Dick'. It compares the stories' content and characters as well as their literary properties. It discusses the similarity between the main themes as well as the narrator's significance. It includes several excerpts form both books and analyzes them. Finally, it concludes that Coleridge and Melville seem to be delivering the same message. They urge us, as humans to accept the mysteries of the universe, however harsh we find them, or we will end up destroying ourselves.

From the Paper:

"'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and 'Moby Dick' by Herman Melville are rich in thematic parallels. Both works are highly symbolic and are centered on the sea, which can be equated with the sea of life. Both stories are dramatic, fantastic, exciting and full of supernatural portent. Symbolism seen through nature is a major theme in both as the Mariner and Ahab share monomanical obsessions with albatross and whale. Both works are narrated by the only soul to survive the experience and both narrators, Ishmael and the Mariner with his "glittering eye"( Coleridge l. 13) can be imagined to be similar strange figures who might corner a listener to tell the tale which haunts him. Both Ishmael whose liferaft is a coffin and the Mariner, whose skeleton ship disintegrates are ghostly reminders of their creators advice about dealing with life's mysteries."

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