Remains Flashcards
Form
Title “Remains” shows soldiers remain damaged beyond repair after the war is over, and how war strips a person of their individuality and sensitivity of death, simply leaving them with the remains of a body
Dramatic monologue and in present tense(particles like “legs it”) give it an account from memory in a flashback
Colloquial way he’s accepting his guilt and suffering is portrayed as a stream of consciousness, centred around his uncensored memories and emotions, contrast to expectation for soldiers to be strong and masculine(“I swear I see every round as it rips through his life”)
Structure
“Then I’m home on leave.”: Caesura claims going home should be the end of his memory of the event and the extent of the Warzonw’s impact on him, but isn’t. Caesura interrupts the sentence, forcing the reader to pause and consider conflict through the speaker’s perspective. Conjunction “but” shows war causes him trauma still despite him physically escaping it.
Enjambment across stanzas “But I blink and he bursts”- shows merging of reality and memory as reflected by blending and merging of lines
Start of poem “on another occasion” shows soldiers are expected to deal with repeated exposure to suffering without any help, also portrays reader as a listener as the speaker needs for someone to listen to his experiences to process memories and guilt.
Final stanza only two lines(“but near to the knuckle, here and now, his bloody life in my bloody hands”)- breakdown in structure(from the rest of the stanzas in the poem being four lines)- could mirror the hreakdown of soldiers during war
Snifting blame - at the start of the poem, the speaker tries to alleviate/excuse what he did and share the blame with others, speaker works to syntactically and structurally dominate the stanza with others(“all three of us”, “three of a kind”)
Ar the end of the poem, the feeling shifts to him feeling entirely responsible
Enjambment such as in “And I swear/I see every round as it rips through his life” suggests the speaker’s unable to separate out events, he continues to be haunted by what he did. The enjambment at key moments specifically break up the sentences on death and suffering, suggesting the pain he witnessed breaks him just as it breaks the structure.
Language
Colloquial language(e.g. “so”, “I swear” when referring to dead bodies).
Soldiers tools of war trained to think the same way as aggressive and distrusting people who just hafe to follow orders(“we get sent out” and “are all of the same mind.”
Guilt - speaker accepts involvement once he stops hiding how he feels from the reader: anaphora of poem “probably armed, possibly not” creates cyclucal steucture showing he’s focused on the possibility of the killing being unjustified, and how he feels guilty and regrets killing the looter.
