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The ancient mariner kills his albatross with a carelessness that stands in stark

contrast to his impulse for confession.

For several days, he and his shipmates feed the albatross, play with it, and treat it as if it were

inhabited by a, quote, Christian soul. The mariner never tells the wedding guest why it is that he

kills the bird, but the casual and seemingly unmotivated act is followed by

a psychedelic nightmare that gives us some clues. Why do we rebel against our position within the

natural world, even to the point of self-destruction? What is required to restore us? Today we discuss

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's classic poem, The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.

This is Wes Allone. This is Aaron Alonick. And you're listening to subtext.

Okay, Wes, here's how I'd like to kind of frame our discussion today. It's a philosophical question,

I know, but I think it's foundational to our discussion of this poem. And that is,

is it really ever a crime to kill a bird? Is it ever a crime to kill a bird? Well,

you're making me associate to something which I associated to when I started reading the poem,

which is being an adolescent boy, and at some

point, the hunting instinct kicks in. As a teenager, you desperately want to bow an arrow and

you desperately want a gun, or at least a BB gun. And then you go out and try to kill things

with it. And then you regret it horribly. So that's what happened to me. I had several BB guns

early. I forget one of the age that I was when I first got them. And then I had a friend whose name

...