Remains Flashcards
What is the poem about?
The after effects of conflict (war photographer blending of conflict and domestic life)
And the horrors of war (bayonet charge)
‘On another occasion’
How does the placing of this line effect structure?
Unstable opening to poem, reader doesn’t know the whole story
Reflects how the soldiers don’t know the whole story before being sent out on a mission/ nothing’s really controlled or organised.
Lack of ease soldiers feel in the war zone.
‘Well myself and somebody else and somebody else’
‘All - of us open fire. Three of a - all letting fly’
Repetition of ‘somebody else’ : doesn’t want to accept solitary blame.
‘All three of us open fire. Three of a kind all letting fly’
VS
‘His bloody life in my bloody hands’
Accepts blame
Enjambment
Shows life changing moment when the soldier shot the looter.
‘Three of a kind all letting fly, and I swear
Forced stanza break.
I see every round as it rips through his life’
Forced stanza break- broken man
Causes reader to stop
Emphasises how this precise moment is the point where his life is ruined.
From this point the soldier is a different person.
Significance of sentence lengths in ‘then I’m - on -‘
‘Then I’m home on leave.’
Caesura (causing pause or full stop in the middle of the line)
Sense of finality
Narrator feels that going home will change things
This isn’t what happens.
What emphasises that going home won’t change things
Repetition of ‘probably armed, possibly not’
On line 4- in war zone
Line 22- at home
Cyclical structure- everything goes round in a circle
Shows the trauma the soldier experienced is inescapable
Title analysis
‘Remains’
Remains of soldier mentally when he kills the looter.
Soldier has been used in the machine of war and what’s left is no good to anyone - broken person mentally
Remains of memory of looter
Remains of looter ‘blood shadow’
Colloquial language
Vs
Violent imagery
‘Legs it up the road’
Relaxed and casual
This event was an everyday event for the soldier
‘On another occasion’
Juxtaposes violent imagery/ shocking
‘I see every round as it rips through his life’ - violent metaphor
Paints a stronger picture of the before and after effects of soldier from carefree and relaxed to severely traumatised.
Significance of vague language
‘Sort of inside out’
‘Sort of’
Vague language (beyonet charge) - reflects the impossibility of describing what’s actually happening
Not prepared for the harsh reality of killing someone,
Disrespect for the looter
‘One of my mates goes by
And tosses his guts back into his body
Then he’s carted off in the back of a lorry’
Imagery of bin men- looter is a piece of rubbish
Complete disrespect
They didn’t know the looter or the full story of what’s happening links to ‘on another occasion’
‘The - and the drugs won’t - him out’
‘The drink and the drugs won’t flush him out’
Link to sickness
To cleanse of something unpleasant
Soldier is unclean and sick
Use of war imagery while at home on leave
Looter is ‘dug in behind enemy lines’ in soldiers head.
Use of war imagery while soldier is home on leave reflects the impact war has had on him.
At war- casual language
At home- war language
Can’t switch off the soldier inside of him.
Significance of reference to macbeth
‘His bloody life in my bloody hands’
Motif of blood in macbeth
Images of murder cannot be forgotten (links to lady macbeth going crazy after killing Duncan)
Causes mental damage
Sun- — sand - — land’
‘Sun- stunned, sand- smothered land’
‘Sun’ and ‘sand’ positive
‘Stunned’ and ‘smothered’ aggressive and violent
Nothing positive left for the narrator- everything is tainted by the evil of war.
Sibilance emphasises significance
Compound adjectives.
