It follows a typical gothic setting which includes a gloomy, isolated castle. The weather is also stated to be very cold and weather for pathetic phallacy. The castle is situated next to a sea maybe to symbolise how the YOUNG GIRL feels isolated and trapped in the castle. Moreover, the alone, vulnerable, young girl aspect is typical in all gothic stories as well as an old, insane corrupt count. Another gothic element in the bloody chamber is the sense of concealment, in the bloody chamber the count tells the girl that she can enter any room in the castle except for one. In the end curiosity which is another gothic feature gets the better of the young girl and she does enter the room but what she finds are mutilated, dead, corpses of the counts previous wives. Interestingly, portraits of the wife were spoken of at the beginning of the story maybe to highlight the fact that something mysterious and sinister is going on.
the ocean represents the mysteries of the human soul and, if you want to get all Sigmund Freud about it, the unconscious. Just like the sea, an individual's personality is often like a flat, uniform surface that conceals a deepness filled with those bizarre and often unsightly creatures we call emotions or desires. So, when the Mariner pollutes his soul by killing the albatross, it's not a surprise to see that the ocean becomes polluted with slime and horrible creatures. Moreover, the imagery of the vast, vacant ocean, particularly once the rest of the crew has died, expresses a condition of spiritual solitude and loneliness. It's the kind of setting that makes you realize we're truly all alone in this world, with seemingly infinite depths above and below us.
As the Ancient Mariner drifts on the ocean, the natural world becomes more threatening. His surroundings - the ship, the ocean, and the creatures within it - are "rotting" in the heat and sun, but he is the one who is rotten on the inside. Meanwhile the sailors' corpses refuse to rot, and their open eyes curse him continuously, giving the Ancient Mariner a visible manifestation of the living death that awaits him. He will age, but his of damnation. As the Ancient Mariner floats, he becomes delirious, unable to escape his overwhelming loneliness even by sleeping: "I closed my lids, and kept them close, / And the balls like pulses beat; / For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky / Lay like a load on my weary eye..." His depravity has even denied him the comfort of prayer.
Ironically, it is the "slimy", "rotten" creatures themselves that finally comfort the Ancient Mariner and allow him to pray. Until this moment, Coleridge's imagery has underscored the
