Preston CooperENG 3U1Ms. CurtisMarch 29th, 2015Immoral Behaviour is Secceded by GuiltBy definition, most self-serving behaviour does not benefit those around you. The result of these action, while doing what you want at the time ends with feelings of contentment, eventually guilt and the resulting suffering set in, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and "Forgive My Guilt" by Robert Coffin illistrate this particular situation perfectly. In both, the speakers, The Mariner and Coffin himself, commit an immoral act against the bird of their respective situation and are looking back at the incident with guilt and grief.In each work, the speaker kills the indifferent bird of their story. The Mariner and Coffin each know what they have done is wrong afterwards but commit the act without thinking of the consequences otherwise. Such as the Albatross where The Mariner and those around him praise the Creature that lifted the fog from around them, but The Mariner shoots it anyway: "As if it had been a Christian soul/ we hailed it in God's name." (Coleridge 65-66). This proves that among the Sailors and The Mariner, they mutually agree that this great Beast is something to praise. illistrating it's holiness. This is immediately followed by the shooting of the Albatross for no apparent reason: God save thee, ancient Mariner!From the friends, that plague thee thus!Why look'st thou so?With My Crossbow I shot the Albatross. (Coleridge 79-82).While similarly with "Forgive My Guilt", the execution of the bird is premeditated. This is shown when Coffin states that "[He] lay in the frostflowers with a gun/ The air ran blue as flowers, [he] held [his] breath" (Coffin 1). Coffin sitting in the flowers with his rifle in his hands and holding his breath to steady the accuracy of his shot proves his intent to shoot the bird. He eventually follows through by shooting this bird who did nothing: "My gun went off, they ran with broken wings" (Coffin 1). Coffin shoots the bird, and though it is not explicitly stated that it died, the brutal description is more than enough to assume that the bird died. No matter the normality of hunting today, it's still presented as immoral as both birds were not causing any harm making the killing in vain.After killing their respective birds, The Mariner and Coffin expirence great grief. The Mariner is cursed with lonliness for his evil deed. He is so affected by this that his inner monologue only consists of "Alone, alone, all, all alone,/ Alone on a wide wide sea!/ And never a Saint took pity on/ My soul in agony" (Coleridge 232-235). He is destined to live the life of lonlieness and is clearly very distraught about this. An addition to his curse was that The Mariner had to live out his sentence of lonliness surrounded by his dead friends and shipmates, "The many men, so beautiful!/ And the dead did lie/ And a thousand thousand slimy things/ Lived on; and so did I" (Coleridge 236-239). This is particularly symbolic as The Mariner killed the Albatross, he in turn killed his shipmates which he now has to live with emotionally and now physically as well. While Coffin's grief is less dramatic as he was young and naive when he did it, but he still feels guilty for what he has done. He says "I am sure of one sin I have done/ It was years ago, and I was a boy" (Coffin 1). He is so full of grief despite the many years that have passed, Coffin can still recall every detail of the event. So much so that the very image of the injured, near dead, bird is what seemingly haunts him in his adulthood. "They cried like two sorrowful high flutes,/ with jagged ivory bones where wings should be." (Coffin 1). He describes the eventh so vividly that it is something obviously often on his mind. Both works show the main character naive in their immoral actions and suffering in major guilt as a result of these actions. Whether the guilt is shown magnificintly and divine as in "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", or simple yet tragic in "Forgive My Guilt", they're perfect in their display of grief coming from immoral situations.