From George Orwell's Animal Farm to Plato's Cave, allegories serve to teach a lesson to the masses, whether it's to beware of uprising of the proletariat and the betrayal of intellectuals, or to explain that the reality we perceive is only a shadow of what actually exists, our limited reach caused by our own ignorance. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1798, is a complex piece of literature with an abundance of metaphors and allusions that, overall, is a convoluted allegory telling the reader that life is precious and that all of God's creatures are beautiful in their own way. Almost every aspect of Mr. Coleridge's poem is an extended metaphor intended to give the story its moral; the wedding guest, the feast, the sailor, the albatross, the crewman, the water serpents, the seraphim, and the ship all play a role in teaching the lesson that there is beauty in all creatures, from scum troglodytes to quasi-bipeds. intelligent simians. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner begins with three friends walking towards a wedding feast when...