Both the Gothic novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge illustrate the power of the natural world and how nature reflects the mood of the characters and their journeys. In “The Rime of The Ancient Mariner,” the mariner has committed a horrendous crime against nature: he has foolishly killed an albatross without thinking. Nature then begins to assert its power over the mariner and the sailors. Likewise, in “Frankenstein,” the natural world appears to be a soothing balm for healing. Frankenstein is devastated and completely wracked with grief after the deaths of William and Justine, but remarkably is able to appreciate the beauty of the world around him. Ultimately, we have two different representations of nature: nature in “The Ancient Mariner” is a force of retribution while nature in Frankenstein is a symbol of healing and beauty. In Frankenstein and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Coleridge and Shelley shed light on the way of how nature reflects the spirits of the characters and the mood of their journeys. At the beginning of the mariner’s story, the voyage starts out happily and, “The Sun came up upon the left/And he shone bright.” The sailors are in joyous spirits while the ship sails out. Yet as they journey on, stormy weather comes and the sailors are soon surrounded by ice. An albatross, typically a harbinger of good luck on the seas comes and breaks the ice. The mariner mindlessly kills the albatross for no apparent reason and the weather quickly becomes worse than before. The sun is described as, “fleck’d with bars as if through a dungeon he peer’d with broad and burning face” (177-180). Here, the imagery of the sun rising and its unrelenting heat beating down on the crew only serves to worsen their plight. Also, the sailors see, “water, water, water everywhere” from the wide expanse of sea, yet there is, “not a drop