Theme 7: Narrtativr Framing And Confession

Question 1

1. “It is an ancient Mariner, / And he stoppeth one of three.”

Answer 1

Analysis:
• The Mariner inserts himself into society to retell his crime, initiating a confessional frame.
• By stopping “one of three,” Coleridge presents a random selection, implying that anyone could be the next recipient of this moral testimony — and by extension, we are all potential jurors.
• The urgency and insistence in his interruption mirror the compulsiveness of confessions in crime fiction, where the criminal is driven to speak.

Question 2

2. “The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone: / He cannot choose but hear.”

Answer 2

Analysis:
• This line suggests the confession is inescapable, both for the listener and the reader.
• The stone becomes a symbol of judgment—like a courtroom bench—while the listener becomes a witness involuntarily drawn into moral reflection.
• Coleridge subtly turns us into complicit spectators, a key device in crime literature, where truth is mediated through unreliable voices.

Question 3

3. “Since then, at an uncertain hour, / That agony returns.”

Answer 3

Analysis:
• The Mariner suffers from recurring guilt, which functions like PTSD, and compels him to retell the story cyclically.
• The randomness (“at an uncertain hour”) mimics how criminal memory resurfaces without warning, showing that confession is not catharsis—it’s an eternal burden.
• His pain is not linear, but cyclical, which structurally matches the repetition of narrative and the framing device.

Question 4

4. “I pass, like night, from land to land; / I have strange power of speech.”

Answer 4

Analysis:
• The Mariner is condemned to wander and confess, like a mythic penitent (e.g. Cain or the Wandering Jew), reinforcing the fusion of crime and spiritual legend.
• The “strange power of speech” shows how language becomes the tool of redemption and punishment—his words carry divine or supernatural weight.
• In a crime context, this presents the confessional narrator as both judge and condemned, using narrative as justice.

Question 5

5. “The Wedding-Guest turned from the bridegroom’s door.”

Answer 5

Analysis:
• The Wedding Guest is psychologically transformed by the confession—he abandons the wedding, symbolic of joy and community, to reflect.
• He becomes a secondary victim of the crime—not by physical harm, but by exposure to the moral gravity of the Mariner’s tale.
• This is typical of crime literature: innocent bystanders are forever changed by proximity to wrongdoing.