Remains Flashcards
Who is the poet that wrote remains ?
Simon Armatige
- contemporary poet
How can we analyze the structure of the poem ?
Free verse
- does not flow a regular meter or rhyme so it sounds like a recount of events
Quatrains
- he is trying to establish order over his traumas yet it is bitterly ironic as he is still haunted by his memories
How can we analyze the form !? Tie this point with a qoute
Dramatic monologue
- represents his stream of conscious
- constantly occupied his mind he even describes the memory as ‘dug in behind enemy lines’
- inescapable memories of the horrors of war
How can we analyze how the poem starts ?
It starts in Medias Rais
- ‘on another occasion’
- alludes to there being other significant events that torment the soldier as well
- gives us an understanding of his feelings of unease
What are the nine quotes/ points you should know for this poem ?
1.‘Blood shadow’
2. ‘Well me and somebody else and somebody else’ +’all three of us open fire. three of a kind’
3. ‘My bloody hands’
4. ‘ I see every round as it rips through his life’
5.’then I’m home on leave’
6. ‘Probably armed possibly not’
7. ‘Mate’ +’ legs it’
8. ‘ rips through his life’
9. ‘Drink and drugs won’t flush him out’
How can we analyze a qoute that shows him deflecting the blame ? What and why
‘Well myself and somebody else and somebody else’
- repetition of somebody
- the speaker inadvertently admits his guilt yet he frantically tries to shift the blame and shifts our focus subtly conveying a lack of acceptance
‘All three of us open fire. Three of a kind’
- repetition of thee further allows the narrator to shift the blame
How can we analyze the end of the poem ? What and why ?
‘My bloody hands’
- Volta and shift in acknowledgement through personal pronouns
- although in war he dealt with the problem of the looter with others, here he is now left to fight the mental battle alone
How does the poet use enjabment and why ?
‘I see see every round as it rips through his life ‘
- the flow of narrative mimics his flow into the bad mental state and this line acts as a mark of his decent into drugs and alcohol to cope with his mental trauma
What is a good qoute showing a false pause in the narrative ? What and why
‘ then I’m home in leave.’
- caesura creates a pause in the narrative
- reflective of how the soldier thought that the mental burden of war would leave him however he is ironically wrong
What type of structure does the port employ to show the suffering is continuous ? Qoute, what and why
Cyclical structure !
- ‘probably armed possibly not’
- representative of this mental suffering and how it dominates his life and it is repeatedly in the forefront of his mind controlling his life
What type of language does the poet use to show how this is an everyday occurrence ? What and why
Colloquialism
‘Mate’ and ‘legs it’
- the activity is everyday and not irregular for the soldier during combat
What is a good qoute showing literal suffering and harm? What and why ?
‘Rips through his life’
- visceral and metaphoric imagery of death
- juxtaposed by the casual tone of the poem as the soldier was desensitized to the horrors of war
How does the port express the soldiers attempts to cleanse himself of the violence? What and how ?
Cathartic language
‘ drink and drugs won’t flush him out’
He tries to cope yet he views his mental suffering as an illness and tries or ‘flush’ it out
What is a nice qoute showing how the mental suffering follows him? What and how ?
‘Blood shadow’
- metaphorical imagery of death and it’s inescapable imagery of suffering
- it follows him and stains him
- the use of the everyday shadow which is a normal occurrence within human life is juxtaposed by the abnormality of such an event
