The Manhunt by Simon Armitage Flashcards
1
Q
Story + message of ‘The Manhunt’:
A
- Love – with story told from perspective of injured soldier’s wife as she tries to reconnect with him
- Conflict/war – soldier injured on active service, both he and his wife trying to rediscover his identity
2
Q
Tone of TM:
A
Melancholic tone – soldier who has been through great deal of torment + wife trying to find her husband again
3
Q
Imagery of TM:
A
- Imagery of physical damage inflicted on husband through the horrors of war
- Imagery of injuries -> show mental + physical damage done to soldier
4
Q
Context for ‘The Manhunt’:
A
- Born in 1963 – Huddersfield, Yorkshire
- Worked as a probation officer before telling his parents he was leaving to become a full-time poet
- ‘The Manhunt’ arose out of a real-life story which was covered in a Channel 4 documentary
- In the documentary the poem is read by Laura who is Eddie’s husband
- Eddie was badly injured whilst serving as a peacekeeper in Bosnia in 1997 when only 19 years old – a bullet entered his face and ricocheted through his body, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake - there were 1,666 peacetime casualties
- Eddie was badly scarred both physically and mentally – left the army in 2000
- Poem is told from the perspective of Laura his wife who tries to reconnect with her husband and rediscover the man she once knew
5
Q
- “After the first phase / after the passionate nights and intimate days”
A
- beginning of a loving period, when it can be assumed that the soldier was home from a military posting
- anaphora – both lines begin with “after” – emphasises the suggestion that something negative will be revealed
- sentence begins with an adverbial phrase building up suspense as the main clause is anticipated – not a simple love story
- couple happiness is going to be undermined
6
Q
- “only then”
A
- repetition at start of lots of stanzas
- Armitage using anaphora to recount the small steps being taken by the narrator to deal with what is clearly a psychological problem – provides emphasis and suspense
7
Q
- “only then would he let me trace / the frozen river which ran through his face”
A
- In each stanza, the speaker deals with an injury suffered by her husband, and then moves on to another
- “trace” suggests intimacy of touch which troubled people can often find difficult and intrusive – it suggests that she is trying to break through his emotional distance
- “frozen river” – may refer literally to the scar from his injury
- “frozen river” – metaphor for the flow of loving feelings that have hardened like ice – implication is that the man has disturbing memories he wants to forget, to sustain the relationship the woman needs to break the ice
- “frozen” – also implies coldness, like husband’s cold unemotional state
- “frozen” – may also represent the husband’s sadness: how his tears are unable to flow and are “frozen” – the tears are eternally with him
8
Q
- “only then would he let me explore / the blown hinge of his lower jaw””
A
- object of exploration is the horrific “blown hinge” of his jaw
- word ‘blown’ has connotations of an explosion
- the word ‘hinge’ relates to linking things together, highlighting that part of him is unable to function following his part in war
- it also serves to distinguish the mechanical functions of the body from the mental struggles
- half-rhyme – used several times throughout poem, unsettling effect, as the poem is less predictable and less ‘safe’, mirroring the uncertainty the wife feels as she tries to make progress
9
Q
Semantic field of searching
A
- ‘Manhunt’, ‘trace’, ‘explore’, ‘search’ – creates an overall theme of incompletion, reflecting the soldier’s damaged identity following his role in war
10
Q
- “and handle and hold”
A
- seamless enjambment, suggests her ongoing efforts to break through his reserve
- “Handle and hold, suggests that he is emotionally fragile like a child that needs comforting
- the alliterative ‘h’s sound like a gasp, a drawn-in breath as bad memories strike him; she is desperate not to damage his already ravaged mind and body
11
Q
- “the damaged porcelain, collar bone”
A
- Her husband is described as something broken or delicate or wounded, for example, : ‘porcelain’, ‘silk’, ‘fractured’ or ‘punctured
- Armitage pairs the delicate words with contrasting harsh ones e.g., ‘parachute silk’ is contrasted with ‘punctured.
12
Q
- “And finger and thumb / the parachute silk of his punctured lung”
A
- gentle handling
- The repeating ‘p’ sound is alliterative and plosive, to reinforce the idea of violent injury
- An unusable, damaged parachute is an appropriate comparison - the soldier is also damaged and feels similarly useless
- A semantic field of words relating to delicacy and vulnerability is associated with the state of mind of the soldier e.g. ‘silk’, ‘porcelain’, ‘foetus’ and ‘broken.’
- The once tough soldier who was part of a masculine culture is now vulnerable and emasculated, and dependent on his partner to care for him
13
Q
- “and feel the hurt / of his grazed heart”
A
- The words ‘hurt’ and ‘heart’ make up a distinctive half-rhyme, with consonant ‘h’ sounds to suggest heavy-breathing effort — the soldier to face his emotional pain, and his partner to care for him
- The word ‘grazed’ is onomatopoeic, and brings to mind the pain of grazed knees from childhood falls, memories that remain alive for many adults
- The long vowels in ‘hurt’, ‘grazed’ and ‘heart’ give the line a feeling of heaviness
14
Q
- “traced the scarring back to its source / to a sweating, unexploded mine / buried deep in his mind”
A
- mine is a military weapon which can explode at any time, but here it is also the distress of the struggling soldier, also making him sweat with effort
- The implication is that he is just as likely to explode
- It is significant that the ‘unexploded mine’ is ‘deep’ in the soldier’s mind
- His wife must somehow reach this depth, while at the same time be aware that she can set off an ‘explosion’ of emotion
- She is aware that she may not be able to fully ‘disarm’ this deeply embedded ‘weapon’
15
Q
- “around which / every nerve in his body had tightened and closed. / Then, and only then, did I come close”
A
- word ‘every’ shows that it is his whole identity that has been affected by the horrors of war
- Nerves are fundamental to the workings of the body, but the word also suggests something beyond the physical as people can be described as being ‘nervous’ or having ‘lost their nerve’
- The nerves are ‘tightened and closed’ which have connotations of no warmth or love - his new identity is much colder than before
- The imperfect rhyme of ‘close’ and ‘closed’ is a muted ending
- The problem is not fully resolved, but she does, at least ‘come close’
- Armitage has made his statement on how war permanently affects and damages people — not only the soldiers who have direct experience of the fighting, but also their families
