Suffering Through A Different Perspective

😃 Introduction

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is about a sailor haunted by guilt, isolation, and bad decisions. He shoots an Albatross and ends up cursed. It has all the dramatic energy of Romantic literature: symbolic nature, personal transformation, and punishment tied to emotion and the sublime.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43997/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner

Romanticism believes in deep feeling, spiritual truth, and meaningful suffering. But when you compare Coleridge’s work to modern texts, those big emotional morals start to unravel. That’s where Postmodernism steps in. Instead of believing in progress and spiritual order, Postmodernism is more about fragmentation, irony, randomness, and questioning meaning altogether. In today’s world, media like Sure, the Velociraptors are Still on the Loose, but That's No Reason NOT to Reopen Jurassic Park and “Making a Fist,” shows how storytelling has changed. When we line them up next to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, we don’t just get contrast, we see a correlation between  Romanticism and Postmodernism.

🤑 Postmodern Trait #1: Irony and Corrupt Meaning

The Mariner saying “Instead of the cross, the Albatross / About my neck was hung.” reflects one of Romanticism’s key traits: symbolism and reverence for nature. The Albatross becomes a symbol of divine punishment and spiritual weight, connecting the Mariner’s guilt with the natural world. In Romantic tradition, nature often acts as a moral force, punishing and teaching those who go against it. The Albatross, once seen as good luck, transforms into a burden after its death, literally worn by the Mariner as a reminder of his sin. This supports the Romantic idea that nature is sacred and that the consequences of disturbing it will carry deep personal and emotional lessons.

Compare this to the terrible logic present in Sure, the Velociraptors are Still on the Loose, but That's No Reason NOT to Reopen Jurassic Park. When the CEO suggests, “Rather than double down on our containment efforts, we’ve decided to dissolve the velociraptor containment task force altogether,” he uses professional language to describe total failure. Just like the Mariner, the CEO sounds serious, but the logic is completely broken. Romantic symbolism turns into Postmodern performance. Meaning doesn’t come from symbols anymore, it’s just noise.

Sure, the Velociraptors are Still on the Loose, but That's No Reason NOT to Reopen Jurassic Park - https://93c908e7-75fe-4f97-8e88-5e823fbe8c69.usrfiles.com/ugd/93c908_61abfd049c1343b1bf2b42f59a7decb9.pdf

👊 Postmodern Trait #2: Growth & Emotional Loops

In Romantic literature, guilt often leads to redemption. The Mariner’s journey is meant to represent that emotional

transformation. He suffers, reflects, and finds peace by blessing the sea creatures. This moment, where he says, “A spring of love gushed from my heart, and I blessed them unaware,” signals change. In the Romantic tradition, love, nature, and inner clarity are connected. The story moves toward a conclusion that feels emotionally earned.

But viewed postmodernly, this moment feels unsteady.

In “Making a Fist” by Naomi Shihab Nye, the speaker talks about being sick as a child and clinging to her mother’s strange advice: “When you can no longer make a fist.” That line becomes the anchor, but will only l. It’s just a phrase that’s constantly brought up in the speaker’s mind.

Making A Fist - www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48485/making-a-fist

🤩 Boss Man's Take

All of these works deal with survival, but none of them pretend it’s simple or neat. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner follows a classic Romantic path: sin, punishment, and redemption. But even after blessing the sea creatures, the

Mariner still feels haunted. He doesn’t move on. He keeps telling the story, and that makes the transformation feel incomplete. The same thing happens in “Making a Fist,” where the speaker never forgets help from her mom. It doesn’t bring peace or answers. It just stays with her. In Sure, the Velociraptors are Still on the Loose, but That's No Reason NOT to Reopen Jurassic Park, the CEO ignores reality with confident nonsense. This is also survival, just in a different way. Together, these works show how Postmodernism and Romanticism can share parallels, despite the different time periods.

🥳 Conclusion 🥳

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is Romantic, but can also be analyzed through a Postmodernist perspective. On one hand, it believes in the emotional power of nature, the weight of guilt, and the possibility of redemption. These ideas reflect the Romantic tradition’s faith in spiritual change and personal growth. But on the other hand, the poem’s structure, repetition, and ending suggest something less certain. Even after the Mariner blesses the sea creatures, he still feels the need to keep telling people. The moral feels a little vague. When placed next to modern works like Sure, the Velociraptors Are Still on the Loose and “Making a Fist,” we see that the poem doesn’t just belong to the past. It also speaks to the present, where stories don’t always end clean, and meaning isn’t guaranteed. Romantics might want peace, but Postmodernists know we might not get it.

😴 Works Cited