Keats' Epistle

Hello, Ancient Marinere. This poetical letter opening reads like what the life of the wedding guest in Coleridge’s "Rime" would become. He has seen too far into the darkness of life, and that sorrow haunts him forever.

I completely understand this during the current state of affairs. Every day in the news, another horrible tragedy has occurred. People are killing their families, themselves, and their neighbors. I understand that tough economic crimes breed more crime and hopelessness, but this seems like a new level of violence. These are seemingly average people (like always) that appear to just snap. I know it’s like throwing your back out; hefting that laptop didn’t actually throw your back out, but it was the final straw on multiple strains. It’s still fairly distressing to realize that a father can get to the point where killing his entire family seems like a better option than losing the house, or a mother can become so angry at her husband that she decides to retaliate by killing their children. Why? What in our culture teaches people that death is better than poverty, or violence is an appropriate response to feeling powerless? Is it even a cultural issue, or a primitive trigger that gets tripped? As the poem illustrates, in nature, the more powerful prey on the less powerful. It’s the darker side of the ecosystem. However, as “higher” animals, we are supposed to have better control over these things. Yet, the cycle still exists, just in other terms. Instead of active violence towards the poor, the more powerful (i.e. wealthy) just prey on them through economic oppression. Then, in their powerlessness, the impoverished turn to violence against the only people they have power over: their families.