Remains

• What happens in remians

  • The speaker relives his experience of shooting and killing a bank robber in Iraq in 2003 when he was serving for the army. It is clear that the soldier now turns to drinks and drugs to cope with the extreme PTSD he now faces after these experiences
• who wrote remains?

  • Simon Armitage
  • Wrote the poem in the viewpoint of a soldier who served in Iraq 2003 - it is a first hand experience of war
  • Armitage seeks to use the poem to emphasise the intense phycological effects of war and it was part of 'The Not Dead' on Channel 4, a programme for raising awareness on PTSD
  • Armitage desires to raise awarness of the reprocussions that war can have on the mental health of a soldier
• 'His bloody life in my bloody hands'

  • The adjective 'bloody' may be seen as a motif of guilt, relating to the motif in macbeth, due to the soldier, just as LM, feels the man's blood has stained his conscience and he will be forever haunted by a dying man in his hands.
  • Armitage uses repetition of 'bloody' to create vivid imagery of the gruesome act, in order to emphasise the traumatic experience the soldier had to go through, highlighting the long lasting phycological effect which this had on the soldier
  • alternitavly, 'bloody' may also be used as a curse word, which indicates the personal anger and stress that this has but the man under
• what structure is used?

  • dramatic monologue in the present tense
  • this gives the illusion that the account is a flashback, highlighting the PTSD which the soldier deals with
• 'On another occasion'

  • Poem opens on media res
  • this suggests that the mission is a reguar occurence and only one of many vile experiences that the soldiers are forced into
  • Armitage may do this to expose the gruesome situations that the soldiers have to experience on a daily basis
  • alternitavley, armitage may have done this to confuse and shock the reader, to reflect the erratic and turbulent nature of war
• 'The drinks and drugs won't flush him out'

  • This shows the detrimental and utter psycological turmoil this experience has put the soldier in, as he now is turning to substance abuse in order to numb his pain and try to forget this traumatic experience
  • this highlights the speakers inability to cope with the memories which reflects the speakers stuggle with ptsd
  • armitage shows the aftermath of war for soldiers as it can lead to detrimental psycological impacts
  • furthermore, the subtle use of military language 'flush him out' may be displaying the long lasting effect that war has had on the soldier, as it has transformed him completley as he uses military language in his day to day life, which highlights the inescapible impact which joining the army has
• 'tosses his guts'

  • the verb 'tosses' indicates a lack of respect for the corpse, perhaps highlighting the careless and unhumane nature of war
  • furthermore, the speaker uses colloquial language which underscores the desensitization of violence and traumatic experienes