REMAINS

Question 1

Context:

Answer 1

Poet:
Armitage

Soldier with PTSD
Guardsman Tromans

Question 2

Form and Structure:

Answer 2

First-person monologue
8 quatrain stanzas with the last stanza being 2 lines
Ending -
The breakdown in structure could present the breakdown of soldiers during the war. Could also show when the speaker has truly broken.
Reveals the source of his internal chaos - Guilt

No rhyme scheme - monologue/confession

Question 3

What does the use of Caesura and Enjambment emphasize?

Answer 3

The natural speech patterns of the speaker.

Question 4

“probably armed, possibly not”

Answer 4

Repetition /Anaphora in stanza 1 and stanza 6
‘probably’ provides justification. Possibility of the killing being unjustified if he wasn’t armed, therefore feeling regret and guilt of the looter.
cyclical structure, his mind keeps coming back to the question if it was right.

Question 5

Importance of ending

Answer 5

The breakdown in structure could present the breakdown of soldiers during the war. Could also show when the speaker has truly broken.
Reveals the source of his internal chaos - Guilt
‘hands’ - takes the blame

Question 6

“His bloody life in my bloody hands”

Answer 6

Takes full responsibility for the killing of the looter and regrets it

Pun -
Could be used to describe the violent gruesome nature of his death
or
could be used as slang or cursing.

Question 7

“blood-shadow”

Answer 7

Death stains a person’s conscience and memory just as it stains the street.
He is haunted by the memory - no way to escape it

Question 8

“I blink and he bursts”

Answer 8

Enjambment across stanzas -
separating reality from memory.

Plosive ‘B’
violent sound

Connotations of waking up -
flashbacks becoming impossible to distinguish between what is being awake