The Manhunt Flashcards
Repetition of “Only Then”
Repetition of phrases emphasizes the soldiers slow and painstaking journey to recovery
(Anaphora - repetition of the same phrase for an effect)
“the blown hinge” what’s the meaning
Powerful/Violent imagery
The hinge holds things together, blown hinge shows Eddie Beddoes is falling apart
“Parachute silk”
Weak and soft material
Suggests he often needs help as parachutes are used to soften landing
“Traced the scarring back to its source”
Extended metaphor from stanza 2 of the “frozen river” on the soldier’s face
Closer to his suffering but he’s not any better at the source of the physical damage
“Grazed Heart”
Double meaning of grazed:
Bullet physically grazed his heart and is recoverable but it left an emotional graze behind
“Sweating unexploded mine”
-Image of a sweating bomb shows the tension and stress (PTSD) the solider is currently suffering
-An unexploded mine shows that Laura has only seen the tip of his suffering - Eddie is keeping a lot inside and hidden, that hasn’t been dealt with
“Porcelain”
In a fragile mental-state that is easily broken
“Trace” “Explore” “Handle” “Skirting”
Caring language: Range of diffrrent verbs used to describe how Laura is caring for Eddie.
“Trace” are gentle and shows how she delicately cares for him and stresses how much she cares about him
while “bind” shows how she helped him on the road to regain his strength
“Every nerve in his body had tightened and closed”
“Then, only did I come close”
-Muted ending without fully rhyming
-Shows speaker has made progress to heal the brokenness of the solider but has only “come close”
Language throughout body of the poem
-Body is presented using adjectives that describe damage:
Paired with metaphors that compare the body with broken objects suggest that the damage the solider has suffered has taken away some of his humanity
-Comparisons could be a way for Laura to try and understand and come to terms with Eddie’s injuries
“Then, only did I come close” meaning
-Only sentence that lies on one line in the whole poem:
emphasizes the wife’s realization that her husband’s psychological scars are much worse than his physical ones
Feeling and Attitudes from the Manhunt
1)Love - Soldier’s wife is sensitive in her approach to her husband as she wants to get to know him again + help him and
understand the pain he’s going through
2)Patience - Takes the whole poem for the wife to progress and to “come close” to her husband and it’s unclear how much progress she’ll be able to make in the future
She shows patience they both will need for the solider to make a full recovery
3)Pain - Imagery of the poem suggests physical + mental suffering Eddie endures
and implies mental suffering is the main cause of his trauma and suffering
Use of Enjambment in the poem?
Gives stanzas a sense of movement:
reflecting speakers desire to keep
making progress although it’s slow
Structure of the poem
Different injuries are introduced in different couplets gradually moving further down the body:
allows reader to explore his body and mind at the same time that the wife is
