The mariner's journey is a spiritual one, as well as a fantastic sea voyage, and the profound nature of his experience is the force that drives him to share his story, long after it occurred. The mariner's crime is that he killed the albatross, for no other reason than that he could and chose to exercise his selfish will. The symbolism of the albatross can be interpreted in many ways. It lived as a part of God's natural world and had served as a loyal guide and good omen for the sailors. The ship's crew had "hailed it in God's name," according to the old mariner, "[a]s if it had been a Christian soul."
