Remains by Armitage Flashcards
(11 cards)
Who wrote this poem?
Armitage
What is this poem about?
A group of soldiers shoot a man who is running away from a bank raid he is involved in; his death is described in graphic detail
The soldier narrating the story is unsure about whether the man was armed
The narrator experiences PTSD ashe is haunted by the man’s death
What are the main themes of this poem?
PTSD, effect of war, war, guilt, trauma
What quote is repetition and a metaphor?
‘I see every round as it rips through his life - Repetition; demonstrates how the soldier constantly replays this grotesque scene in his mind in the same graphic
I see broad daylight on the other side’ detail as he witnessed it. ‘Rips through his life’ (metaphor) exemplifies the brutality of the act as the bullets have now come out ‘on the other side’ indicating the ‘looter’ is now a mangled mess. ‘The other side’ can literally refer to the bullets exiting the body, but it could metaphorically hint at the afterlife that the man has been condemned to.
What quote is repetition?
‘his bloody life in my bloody hands’ - repetition of ‘bloody’ could have a double meaning: it could mirror how the narrator constantly sees the man’s blood on his hands and feels responsible. The change from ‘we’ at the start to ‘my’ at the end reveals how the collective responsibility has been dismissed as the narrator takes full responsibility as his guilt is consuming him.
‘Bloody hands’ alludes to Lady Macbeth constantly trying to wash her hands following Duncan’s murder. Armitage mirrors the narrator’s guilt and Lady Macbeth’s as they both committed murder and now foreshadows the narrator’s mental breakdown and potential death too as he follows Lady Macbeth’s tragedy.
What quote has colloquial language?
‘Tosses’ , ‘carted’, ‘legs it up the road’, ‘so we’ve hit this looter a dozen times’ - colloquial language indicates how the soldier has become desensitised and accustomed to the horrific and harsh realities of war. The narrator is detached of the murder and the casual language juxtaposes the severity of the act indicating the constant conflict that soldiers are condemned to.
What quote is an anecdote and monologue?
‘On another occasion’ - Anecdote and monologue; Armitage has the unnamed narrator recount his story to highlight the regularity of the situation as this is a norm for soldiers
What quote shows that there is a shift from past to present tense?
We get sent out’ / ‘I walk over it’ ‘he’s here in my head when I close my eyes’ - Shift from past tense to present - By narrating the story and then shifting to the present tense, Armitage reiterates how the soldier is constantly living in the events of the past as he is stuck in a cycle of mental torture.
What is different in the final stanza?
Final stanza - the poem is set out in 7 quatrains with the final stanza changing this pattern, only being two lines long. This reduction of lines mimics the breakdown of the narrator’s mental state as final line makes it clear how the narrator ends every day with the thought of the dead victim.
What poems can be compared to Remains?
Exposure (experiences of conflict), Poppies (effect of conflict), War Photographer (effect of conflict/power of memory), Kamikaze (effects of conflict/power of memory)
What is the context for Remains?
poem written from the perspective of a soldier in Iraqor Afghanistan
-on patrol and fire on some bank robbers
-poem explores the events in a soldiers life which in turn trigger PTSD-the memory hurts him more than the event itself
