LIT2 - Poetry - Remains Flashcards
Who wrote Remains? Give some context about the poem:
-Simon Armitage
-he wasn’t a soldier but he interviewed those who went to war, set during the Gulf War
-shows the psychological effects of war
Give 6 good quotes for Remains:
-probably armed, possibly not
-myself and somebody else and somebody else
-sort of inside out
-end of story, except not really
-dug in behind enemy lines
-his bloody life in my bloody hands
probably armed, possibly not
-plosive p gives a slight sense of aggression and heightened emotion, almost as if the soldier needs to justify killing the looter
-repeated later on when he is “home on leave”, showing how he is in great turmoil over the possibility of him not being armed
myself and somebody else and somebody else
-line is syntactically dominated by “somebody else”, as he tries to distance himself from the event and alleviate his own guilt
-the other soldiers have no identity as they are left unnamed, and the repetition of “somebody else” emphasises how war strips a man of their identity
sort of inside out/tosses his guts back into his body
This analysis is good for any of these gruesome events
-colloquial voice shows how he can talk so casually about such gruesome events, showing how war has desensitised him
-vague language like “sort of” reflects the indescribable horror of war, suggesting that despite his military training, he is not ready for the harsh reality of killing someone
end of story, except not really
-blunt ending to the looter’s story, highlighting how war has desensitised the soldier
-discourse marker of poem where it shifts from 1st person plural to 1st person singular to show how he begins to acknowledge his own responsibility
dug in behind enemy lines
-reinforces how war has affected him deeply, and how it is “dug” into him as if it were lodged in his mind
-war imagery using when he is “home on leave”, showing the inescapable and permanent effects war has had on him
his bloody life in my bloody hands
-could be interpreted as him expressing his anguish towards killing the looter by using an expletive, or referring to the literal blood on his lifeless body on the floor
-possessive pronoun “my” shows his full acceptance of responsibility, contrasting the previous phrases (eg “we’ve hit this looter”)
-alludes to Macbeth’s guilt after he committed murder, and how he crumbles under his immense turmoil
Describe the structure in the poem Remains:
-all 4 line stanzas, but ends with broken 2 line stanza to reflect the mental breakdown
-opens in medias res with informal register with “on another occasion”, as if it was just another day in his soldier life
-enjambment into a new stanza is used to show the life-changing moment of when he killed the man (“I swear/I see every round”)
