ABSTRACT
In Samuel Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” the Mariner must tell his story to expiate for his sin, killing the albatross. As the Mariner appears to have been immortal since his misdeed, unceasing repetition of the story over centuries becomes his punishment, and yet, telling it also offers him uneasy and fleeting relief sustained by the hope that the day may come when the story will no longer need to be retold. Every person the Mariner meets has no choice but to listen to the story, as if inexplicably drawn by its power and the magnetism of its teller. Instilled in the listener are a sense of guilt, an awareness of suffering, and a remote hope for recovery, which accompany the teller and reflect the crushing power of the Mariner’s rime. The story of the Holocaust resonates similarly: those who have been witnesses cannot stop telling it, even if only to themselves; those who have heard it at least once cannot forget. They live their lives trying to comprehend the story, with a perplexing mixture of guilt,1 pain, and hope that compels them to retell the story endlessly in one form or another.
