Write a short note on “The Wedding-Guest.”
Introduction
In the poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” Coleridge (1772-1834) uses a framing device in which the Mariner tells his strange tale to the Wedding-Guest who have missed the wedding ceremony but at the end becomes a wiser man.
The Wedding-Guest
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The structural importance
The structural importance of the Wedding-Guest is extensive. Through the Wedding-Guest the framing device is established. He develops the plot of the poem. Structurally he helps to bring out clearly the spiritual crisis undergone by the Mariner after killing the Albatross. He draws the reader’s attention to the significant states.
The listener
The Wedding-Guest is the listener of the poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” whom the Mariner chooses to describe his strange tale. Although the guest fears the Mariner at first he feels compelled to listen to the Mariner’s tale for a number of reasons. The Mariner’s “long grey beard and glittering eye” make him listen to him. As the Mariner holds the guest with his skinny hand the guest has no option now but to listen to him like a three years child –
“He holds him with his glittering eye –
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listen like a three years’ child:
The Mariner hath his will.”
A link between two worlds
The wedding guest’s feedback to the narrative by the Mariner supplies realistic touch to the unrealistic events. He is a link between two worlds – 1) the world of imagination which is the story of the Mariner and his strange experiences 2) the world of reality, in which the Guest and the church are the part. The contrast between the spiritual worlds of the Mariner with its rich morality cannot be effective without the Wedding-Guest figuring as a link between the two worlds.
The target of the Mariner’s moral
The Wedding-Guest is the of the Mariner’s moral story. Only the Wedding-Guest can give occasion to The Mariner to serve the moral of his story.
Conclusion
Finally, we can assert that the Wedding-Guest plays an important dramatic role in the poem. As the poem begins with the old Mariner’s stopping one of the three guests and the poem concludes with the Mariner finishing his conversation with the Wedding-Guest.
