Alone on a Wide Wide Sea

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Through his lyrical and moving prose, the author evokes a whole array of emotions: desperation, sadness and misery, through to frustration and inspiration. Well, because it can't make up its mind whether it's a book for kids, for adults or for young adults. As an adult I love it, as a kid I would have hated it and I'm not sure what I'd have thought of it as a teenager. Probably been baffled by it. Since the pilot lay unconscious, the mariner took the oars to propel the boat. The pilot’s boy went crazy to see him rowing the boat. He burst into a loud and long laughter. He also rolled his eyes this way and that for a while. Then he exclaimed that he could then see very plainly that the Devil knew how to row a boat.

Then, he was with Aunty Megs. An animal lover, and a farm owner. She would take care of the wild animals, and then leave them on their own, as they grew up. She had a wombat - Henry, who stole many fabrics! And Barnaby, a donkey, who would never do an ee-aw! Thereupon the Pilot called upon God to save them, and exclaimed that the ship really had a devilish appearance, and so he was afraid to go ahead towards the ship. But the hermit encouraged him to row the boat on fearlessly. Time gathers speed as we get older. Life flashes by all too fast, and is over all too soon.” ~ Michael Morpurgo

The seventh part of ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’by Samuel Taylor Coleridge depicts the final scenes of the drama and the Mariner’s last thoughts for the Wedding Guest In this extract, the Ancient Mariner further tells him that he had been all alone on the vast ocean. The region was so lonesome that God Himself did not seem to be present there. Alliteration is a type of repetition that’s concerned with the use and reuse of the same consonant sound at the beginning of multiple words. For example, “morrow morn,” the last two words of the poem. Repetition also occurs more broadly in the poem with Coleridge’s use and reuse of refrains, images, and words that begin and end lines (examples of anaphora and epistrophe). The word “morrow morn” means next morning, while the meaning of “And is of sense fortorn” means that the Wedding-Guest has been forsaken by his power of judging; or, and was out of his senses.

In this novel for older children, Michael Morpurgo presents the story of orphan Arthur Hobhouse, thought to be born sometime around 1940 in Bermondsey, London. In 1946, when he’s only six years old, he and a large group of other child migrant boys are sent by ship to Australia. Marty (Arthur’s ten-year-old friend and protector) tells the younger boy that all of them have been “specially chosen from all the orphans in England” to go to the brand new country of Australia, a place unaffected by war where food is abundant and warm-hearted families are waiting to look after them.

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That’s what sailing is, a dance, and your partner is the sea. And with the sea you never take liberties. You ask her, you don’t tell her. You have to remember always that she’s the leader, not you. You and your boat are dancing to her tune.” ~ Michael Morpurgo

Apart from the harrowing issues of the treatment suffered by the orphans, this story also explores the strength of family ties and the need to know who you are, and where you come from, something that was stripped from the children as soon as they set foot on the boat that would take them to Australia. Even if things don't seem to be working out quite as you'd like them to, you need to feel they're going to, that all will be well in the end" The mariner repeats that he who loves great and small creatures most sincerely prays to God most earnestly. For the dear God loves all of us. Having made all the creatures, he loves all equally. Then upon the whirlpool where the ship had sunk, the boat spun round and round for a while. Gradually everything became quiet in the bay except that the cloud sound was still being echoed by the hills. He is indeed a storyteller. He wrote it simply from his heart, it feel like the book is talking to it's reader. The words is simple and his book is great for children. I cry and thinking deeply of his words.

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This book is a gem. Michael Morpurgo, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! These 'thank you's can never be enough! For me this will be the birth certificate I never had. It’s to prove to me and to anyone else who reads it that at least I was here, that I happened.” ~ Michael Morpurgo The hermit also said that it was really strange not to find those lights on the ship. Besides, the crew did not respond to their shouts of welcome. He added that the boards of the ship looked shrunken, and the sails were thin and dried up. The rest of the journey was hard for me to follow, because of the tears in my eyes. The deaths, ugh.

Arthur Hobhouse is a happening. I’ve been a happening for sixty five years, or thereabouts, and the time has come now for me to put my life down on paper.” ~ Michael Morpurgo The Ancient Mariner, in these lines, then bids a hearty farewell to the Wedding-Guest, and also gives him a piece of advice. He tells the latter to remember that he who loves abundantly, all human beings, birds or animals, pray God rightly. He further said that he had never seen anything so dry and twisted as were those sails except the brown, dried, skeletal leaves that obstructed the movement of the brook in his forest, when in every summer the bush of ivy was laden with snow, and the owlet hooted at the wolf which, beneath the tree, ate his own young ones, in the absence of the she-wolf. The boat soon came closer to the ship. But the mariner neither spoke to them nor made any bodily movement. Just as the boat came close to the ship, a loud sound was heard straightaway. This journey was so heartfelt. Sometimes I doubted that they would ever find Kitty, but see for yourself. All the questions are clear.

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The bus draws to a halt at a farm called Cooper's Station. A gramophone is playing What a Friend We Have in Jesus. The farm is run by Mr. Bacon (known to the boys as Piggy Bacon), and his wife, Mrs. Ida Bacon (known as Mrs. Piggy). The couple are very unalike. Piggy Bacon is cruel, loud, and claims to be a devout Christian but is not; Mrs. Piggy is kind, caring, quiet, a good Christian, and completely under her husband's power. Coleridge makes use of several literary devices in this part of ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,’as well as in all the other sections.These include but are not limited to personification, alliteration, repetition, and imagery. The latter is one of the most important techniques a poet can use in their work. Without it, readers might leave the poem interested or unmoved by what they read. For example, “Brown skeletons of leaves that lag /My forest-brook along.” Throughout the novel a boat is used to represent love and trust. This becomes evident when Arthur builds a boat for Allie 'so they could each do what they love to do best together'. Arthur builds this boat for Allie because he knows how much it would mean to her to sail to England, which has been her dream ever since she was a little girl. The gift is also to prove to his daughter that he trusts she is ready to take on the dangerous seas. In this seventh and last part of the poem, ‘ The Rime of The Ancient Mariner‘, the mariner says that the good hermit lived in the wood that stands on the slope of the Hill and slants down to the sea. He used to sing him hymns, in his sweet voice very loudly. He also loved to talk to the mariners that came from a distant land.