context

    Cards (12)

    • Simon Armitage is an Oxford professor of poetry
    • Remains is a poem from a collection called " the not dead " . It is a book of accounts of surviving soldiers stories turned into poems .
    • The narrator is a machine gun operator in the Iraq war
    • the soldier in remains was so scared by the incident he cried and used substances to cope
    • the poem begins in media res , showing the lack of ease the soldiers felt. A sever lack of preparation
    • In the beginning of the poem the narrator wants to make it extremely clear that he alone killed the man , but a heard mentality of some sorts. the repetition of " all " as well as " somebody else " shows he wants to distance himself as much as possible
    • At the end of the poem the narrator he is alone and he accepts his part in killing the man with use of " my "
    • Enjambment ( where sentences flow over on to separate lines ) is used to show the life changing moment where the soldier shot the looter " ... fly , and I swear / I see every round as it rips through him . This is further emphasised by the stanza break causing the reader to pause and think . from this point on he is broken just like the line .
    • he thinks that home would be safe but he is finds a tormenting warzone under his pillow
    • " then I'm home on leave . " this caesura creates a sense of finality but he is still haunted .
    • the difference in " probably armed " in stanza one compared to " possibly armed " in stanza five shows regret and doubt, gives the poem a cyclical structure returning the reader back where it all started allowing him to be tormented again and again.
    • Remains litteraly means, what is left of parts that have been used , this is a metaphor for the solider because he is the remains of what was once a fully functioning human now reduced to almost a child really this is further pushed by the use of infatile language .
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