Remains

Remains

Context
1. A group of soldiers shoot a looter trying to rob a bank. He dies and his death is described in graphic detail
2. One of the soldiers, the narrator, cannot get over his guilt
  1. PTSD
3. Based on an account from a British soldier who served in Iraq
BY SIMON ARMITAGE
Language
1. Graphic Imagery
  1. The looter's death is described in gory, graphic detail
  2. The imagery illustrates the horrors of war but also how the soldier has become desensitised to violence
2. Colloquial
  1. Frequent colloquial language in the first four stanzas makes the poem seem more anecdotal
  2. Trivialises the looter's death
3. Repetition
  1. Reflects the way the killing is repeated in the soldier's mind
Form and Structure
1. No regular line length or rhyme scheme is reminiscent of a story or anecdote
  1. Links to colloquialisms
2. The speaker starts with a plural pronoun ("we") but later changes to a singular pronoun ("I")
  1. This makes the poem more personal and almost like a confession
3. In the final couplet (which is also the only two-line stanza), both lines have the same metre
  1. This creates a sense of finality an suggests that the soldiers guilt will stay with him forever
4. The poem begins as if it's going to be an amusing anecdote but quickly becomes graphic and violent
5. There's a clear volta at line 17 where the soldier's tone and thoughts are altered by his guilt
Linking to Other Poems
1. Effects of Conflict
2. Reality of Conflict
3. Memory
4. Guilt
5. Indiviual Experiences
Important Quotes
1. "legs it", "sort of inside out", "tosses", "carted off"
  1. Colloquialisms trivialise looter's death
2. "guts", "dug in behind enemy lines", "I see broad daylight on the other side", "blood shadow"
  1. Gruesome, gory, graphic details described casually emphasises how violence has become part of the soldier's everyday life
3. Development of sense of responsibility: "all" and "three" repeated, becomes "in my hands" later.
  1. The poem becomes more personal after the line 17 volta: "End of story, except not really"

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	Created by Spike Richards over 7 years ago