the manhunt

Question 1

author

Answer 1

simon armitage

Question 2

context

Answer 2

Originally written for documentary ‘Forgotten Heroes: The Not Dead’. It was Laura’s speech and addressed her husband. It discusses common effects of war on soldiers that many soldiers suffer from, such as PTSD.

Question 3

structure

Answer 3

• each stanza is a couplet - unity as a couple is made clear visually
• some rhyme and some don’t - may show their struggles to reconnect and understand each other
• ends on a half rhyme - hopeful, yet unresolved

Question 4

paragraph 1

Answer 4

• effect of war on the family of soldiers
• ‘after passionate nights and intimate days’ - anaphora, shows how that is truly behind them, sets up change in their relationship
• ‘only then’ - anaphoric, shows her gradual progress
• ‘hand and hold’, ‘mind and attend’ - trying to fix him, out him back together, nurturing, h alliteration gasp or whisper
• ‘cling the rungs’ - metaphor for his heart, she is climbing up and making her way to him

Question 5

paragraph 2

Answer 5

• urgency to rebuild their relationship before something is lost., before it breaks down
• Sweating, unexploded mine buried deep in his mind’. The wife trying to disarm the mine demonstrates how delicately she is acting to help her husband. It also suggests that if something goes wrong and the mine does end up exploding, it would impact the wife as well as the relationship as a whole, just like an actual explosion having a large radius of impact.
• ‘Then, and only then, did I come close’ shows the amount of time and effort it took, but it also states that the recovery process it still not yet finished.
• ends on half rhyme, hopeful
• ‘skirting along’ - cannot come close
• ‘picture the scan’ finally comes to terms with it