The Marinere, Goody Blake, and Simon Lee: More in Common than Just Being Old?

There is a similarity between the Ancient Marinere, Goody Blake, and Simon Lee that I noticed after reading all three ballads. All three are old, wizened people leading difficult and undesirable lives. They all seem to come from a different time when people were closer and more dependent upon nature, and now they seem painfully out of place and alienated. The Marinere walks the earth in his old age, telling his story from his life on the ocean to unsuspecting youth. Goody Blake essentially scavenges and survives only on what she can glean. Simon Lee is considerably past his prime and his family barely survives off of a small public plot of land. All three of them make the young person they encounter less happy than they had been before. The three ballads ending in the young and modern person’s mourning, suffering, and sadness makes me think that these three ballads represent man’s alienation from nature and the sadness that comes from this. The Marinere, Goody Blake, and Simon Lee represent that dying connection to nature. Alienation from nature and the deep sadness that arises from it are both important themes to the Romantics.