The mariner is in shock that the people on the ship are all looking at him in horror. He refuses to be held liable and feels no remorse for shooting the Albatross, and can't understand why his crew responds by crying out against his actions. However, once the fog beings to clear the crew become convinced that the bird was bad luck and they say in agreement with the mariner, "Then all averred, I had killed the bird / That brought the fog and mist. / "Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, / That bring the fog and mist" (Coleridge, 35). Moreover, when things get worse and the crew again blames him for their bad fortune. The mariner responds in disbelief and confusion, "Ah! Well-a-day! What evil looks / Had I from old and young! / Instead of the cross, the Albatross / About my neck was hung" (Coleridge, 37). His crew, in distress and starvation, throw all guilt on the mariner for causing this. The mariner brushes off their anger as insignificant, it is no big deal for him to carry to blame from his crew. He intellectualizes his actions as justified and rightly, and thus, he begins to repress the idea as well.
In relation to Freud's conclusion with the act of repression, which is when a child divorces itself from being whole with the mother, a step in the Oedipus complex, the mariner divorces himself from the notion of being wrong for killing the Albatross. In rationalizing, and then repressing the idea that he was wrong in killing the Albatross, the mariner correlates intellectualization. He believes his actions were justified and okay because the weather is back to normal now that the Albatross is dead. Instead of admitting that he was wrong and accepting the fact that he killed a good omen, he instead rationalizes his actions and avoids responsibility. The mariner doesn't see the bird as good luck; in fact he perceives the bird as the cause of their bad luck with the weather.
