Remains Quotes Flashcards
‘on another occasion’
opens in media res which serves to confuse the reader as they don’t initially know what’s going on, this mirrors the confusion of the soldier, as they’re not emotionally prepared for what will come next, Armitage making societal comment suggesting that soldiers are launched into situations where they don’t fully understand
‘Get sent out’
soldiers are expected to deal with repeated exposure to suffering and horror without any help
‘Probably armed, possibly not’
slight chance he could have been innocent and not a threat
‘All three of us […] three of a kind’
trying to put the blame on other people so he doesn’t feel as guilty
‘Sort of inside out, pain itself, the image of agony’
gruesome imagery, transition from colloquial to emotional
‘Tosses his guts back into his body […] carted off in the back of a lorry’
‘tosses’ connotes a lack of care or respect, not respecting the body - being treated like an object (dehumanisation) they have been exposed to so much death and violence they are now desensitised to it, lost their respect for life
‘Blood shadow’
death stains a persons conscience and memory just as it stains the street, he is haunted by the memory - no way to escape it
‘Leave. But I blink and he bursts again’
connotations of waking up, the flashbacks are becoming impossible to distinguish between what is being awake and what is a dream, having to blink to try and make out the difference, merging of reality and memory, enjambment across stanzas - separating reality from memory, lots of plosives are used because they have a violent sound
‘He’s here in my head when I close my eyes’
the war zone is no longer real but in his head, internal conflict due to guilt, battle between whether the killing was justified or not, looter is stuck in his mind, his memory continues to haunt him, mental illness - PTSD, soldiers are desensitised by war
‘But near to the knuckle, here and now, his bloody life in my bloody hands’
memory feels offensive - still causing him pain, the violent gruesome nature of his death or could just being used as slang or curse, the later use of the word suggests that this event has ruined his life by having cursed him, and implies that he regrets killing him
