analysis of the manhunt Flashcards
Give the context of the poem “The Manhunt”
“The Manhunt” was written by Simon Armitage in 2008. Armitage is an English poet, playwright and novelist and the poem is from a collection called ‘The Not Dead’. The collection focuses on how war affects ex-soldiers, especially in recent conflict. The poem centers around the couple of Laura and Eddie and is about Laura awaiting Eddie who is coming home from war.
Analyse the title: “The Manhunt”
The choice of the title “The Manhunt” is interesting as it has a double meaning. The husband is returning from a war where he was literally being hunted yet is also connects to how Laura must search for her husband and reconnect with him now that he has returned from the war.
Analyse line one: “After the first phase after passionate nights and intimate days”
In the first line of the poem we have a rhyming couplet, often associated with love showing the initial “passionate” re-connection between Laura and Eddie. It shows their joy to be reunited at last.
Analyse the use of polysyndeton: “and handle and hold - and mind and attend - and finger and thumb”
Armitage uses polysyndeton to show the reader the extent of his injuries, it shows us that they are everywhere, physically and mentally. The use of the verbs “finger” and “thumb”, which are caring, show that the wife is actively seeking to support her husband and help him work through his injuries.
Analyse line eight: “the damaged, porcelain collar-bone”
Here Armitage aims to show Eddie’s fragility and how war has affected him. He describes the collar-bone and “porcelain”, a thin type of clay which tells us he is fragile and weak however it also tells us that he is precious to the narrator, Laura.
Analyse the use of poetic devices: “blown hinge of his lower jaw - damaged porcelain collar-bone - fractured rudder of shoulder-blade - parachute silk of his punctured lungs”
The use of poetic devices in these phrases recreate a journey of discovery from Laura’s perspective. The use of vivid imagery describes the path that Laura takes and shows how she must reconnect to her husband after his physical injuries.
Analyse the use of enjambment: “feel the hurt of his grazed heart.”
Enjambment is used by Armitage to create metre throughout the poem. By adding the full stop after “heart.” it draws attention to the word showing that the center of his hurt is at his heart and the love that he has lost hinting to the reader that his real injury is a mental injury.
Analyse line 19: “the fetus of metal beneath his chest where the bullet had finally come to rest.”
The use of the noun “fetus” to describe the bullet shows that the even was as life changing as having a new baby. The fact that she’s searching “beneath his chest”, emphasizes the lost love she feels, she’s searching for his heart. Finally, the poem shifts after the word “rest.”. The use of enjambment causes a volta, a shift for when she finally reaches the conclusion that his most detrimental injury is his mental one.
Analyse line 23: “to a sweating, unexploded mine buried deep in his mind”
Here the poem draws to a conclusion with the realization that his worst injury was his PTSD. Armitage creates this metaphor of a “sweating, unexploded mine” to create visual images of panic attacks which are common with soldiers suffering from PTSD, revealing that the most important injuries are those that are not immediately visible to us.
Analyse the final line: “Then, and only then, did I come close”
This last line ends the poem in a powerful single sentence symbolizing the end of the journey and road to recovering from PTSD. It shows us the importance of knowing what’s going on inside.
Analyse the use of rhyme scheme
Initially, Armitage adopts a rhyming couplet structure to portray a sense of love to reader, it shows the beginning of the journey when the effects of PTSD are not yet evident and the themes of joy and hope are more present. Then, in the middle of the poem Armitage drops this rhyme scheme to show the reality of the effects of PTSD on soldiers. Then, at the end, Armitage returns to a half-rhyme to convey the same sense of hope as at the beginning and to show the beginning of recovery and healing.
Analyse the themes and write introductions for each
Love: Simon Armitage writes about love and re-connection in the poem “The Manhunt”. He writes about a young couple, Laura and Eddie, who have been reunited after a period of war and Armitage describes the effects of this trauma on their love.
War: In “The Manhunt”, Simon Armitage writes about the detrimental effects that war has on the lives and minds of soldiers. He aims to bring it to our attention that whilst we should attend to the physical injuries of soldiers, perhaps we should be more concerned of the injuries we cannot see, the mental ones.
Give the themes of the poem and poems you would compare them to
Love: “A Wife in London”
War: “The Soldier” or “Dulce et Decorum Est”
