ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -The mariner shot the albatross because he believed that it was an unlucky omen and the source of their diminished wind. He believed that, once the albatross was dead, the wind would return, and they would be able to cross the ocean at a much greater speed.

Detailed explanation-2: -The ungrateful Mariner then shoots and kills the albatross with his crossbow, whereupon the ship is becalmed for days on end and the sailors begin dying of thirst as told in the poem’s best-known line, “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”

Detailed explanation-3: -He shot the bird because he wanted to. The other mariners, who earlier approved of his action, now make him the scape-goat & hang the albatross around his neck instead of the cross.

Detailed explanation-4: -The Mariner is forced to wear the bird about his neck as a symbol of guilt. “Instead of the cross, the Albatross / About my neck was hung”. Coleridge, the poet of this poem was a known user of opium.

Detailed explanation-5: -First, the killing of the innocent bird, and the Mariner’s line that “Instead of the cross, the Albatross / About my neck was hung, ” suggests that the Albatross can be read as a symbol of Christ, with the Mariner as the betraying Judas (particularly as the Albatross is killed by a cross-bow).