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About this quote

What does it mean?
The beautiful men are dead while slimy creatures and the speaker survive.
In plain terms
Dead crew contrast with living slimy sea creatures.
What can you take from it?
Survival can feel unnatural or cursed.

Where it applies

  • survivor guilt
  • moral conflict

Putting it to work

  • showing irony
  • expressing guilt

Questions to consider

  • Why do they survive?
  • What is the curse?

Another view

The term slimy might be subjective.

More from Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  1. Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony.

    Permalink to quote #56
  2. An orphan's curse would drag to Hell A spirit from on high; But oh! more horrible than that Is a curse in a dead man's eye! Seven days, seven nights, I saw tha…

    Permalink to quote #58
  3. I fear thee, ancient Mariner! I fear thy skinny hand! And thou art long, and lank, and brown, As is the ribbed sea-sand.

    Permalink to quote #55

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