More on the supernatural Imprisonment In Part 3, the poem becomes more fantastical as the spiritual world continues to punish the Ancient Mariner and his fellow sailors, as if the spiritual world as a whole is punishing the men, using the natural world as its weapon: the wind refuses to blow, the ocean churns with dreadful creatures, and the sun's relentless heat chars the men. The ghost ship, however, is separate from the natural world - it sails without wind, and its inhabitants are spirits. Death and Life-in-Death are allegorical figures who become frighteningly real for the sailors, especially the Ancient Mariner, whose soul Life-in-Death "wins", thereby dooming him to a fate worse than death, destined to be trapped indefinitely in a living hell. Gothic horror fiction was very popular at the time the poem was written. Consider the strange weather; the albatross as a bird of “good omen”; Death and Life-in-death; the spirit from “the land of mist and snow”, and the two spirits the mariner hears in his trance; the angelic spirits which move the bodies of the dead men; the madness of the pilot and his boy; the mariner's “strange power of speech”,

Is guilt imprisonment? Is it necessary in redemption? The philosophies and religions of the planet Earth will come and go, but the ultimate questions will always be alive and relevant. If we find the answers of traditional religions unsatisfactory, we can learn to ask them ever more deeply. Why do we feel guilty? Is guilt a construct? Does following certain rules of conduct relieve our guilt? Is there a supernatural basis for moral behavior? Which comes first: guilt or morality? What is the connection between religion and morality? How real is evil? Why do we suffer? The spiritual world as a whole is punishing the men, using the natural world as its weapon:.. and yet, the mariner does not repent until much later.