Remains

• A modern war themed poem from the point of view of a soldier with PTSD. Written as an anecdotal of a past even and also explores how the speaker is still haunted by the incident in his present day life.
• Armitage writes in free verse with stanzas of four lines with occasional rhyming. This structure is appropriate because military is highly ordered and regimented, but this poem lacks order. It begins as a casual anecdote about war and in the second half reveals something that is desperately wrong.
• The first four stanzas are light and conversational in tone. This completely contrasts with the second half of the pome when we are presented with the soldier’s mental torment culminating in a powerful and climatic last stanza.
• The speaker shifts from past tense in the first two lines to present tense for the rest of the poem which adds intimacy to the narrative. Although the incident is over, the memory of it still ‘lives’ with the soldier and the memories occur in his mind as if they are happening at the present time.
• “On another occasion” - Discourse marker gives the sense of an on-going narrative. This is just one of the many memories which haunts the speaker. It suggests we are joining an ongoing conversation.
• “End of story, except not really” marks a crucial turning point. It should be the end, but it isn’t - he is reminded of the mans death wherever he goes on patrol.
• He refers to the death metaphorically as “blood shadow” - the road is still stained with his blood - darkened now to create a ‘shadow’ effect.
• The phrase “the drink and the drugs“ indicates he may be suffering from PTSD - as he cannot escape the vivid memory of the death of the looter. The phrase “flush him out” is a metaphor closely linked to military life, where to ‘flush out’ means to force the enemy to break cover.
• “sun stunned, sand smothered” - the effect is memorable with the words ‘stunned‘ suggests that he is staggered and taken back while ‘smothered’ indicates he is bewildered and overwhelmed by his own thoughts. There is no escape.
• Last line: “his bloody life in my bloody hands” is an example of parallelism (a parallel / symmetrical balance with the repetition of ’bloody in the phrase). The repetition of ‘bloody’ serves to stress the immediacy of the soldier’s memories and the gory horror of the initial experience.
• ”My bloody hands” - use of allusion. Represents the narrator’s feelings of guilt. Although the speaker never physically touched the looter’s blood, he still has the image of bloody hands in his mind. It shows the violence of conflict and its after effects.
• “Rips through his life“ “tosses his guts back into his body” - use of graphic imagery. The speaker uses brutal language to describe the death of the soldier. There is no use of euphemism or poetic description instead we are given the precise details of the shooting. This could convey the disturbance and trauma that the speaker carries with him long after he has returned home.
• Feelings and attitudes

  Guilt - the speaker is weighed down by feelings of guilt.

  Attitude to conflict - the speaker’s attitude to conflict is ambiguous. At the start of the poem the colloquial language describes the incident as an everyday occurrence and there is a sense of shared responsibility but later in the poem, the speaker has taken full responsibility for the death of the looter.
• THEMES

  War

  Reality of conflict - explores conflict in a direct way and the longer term effects of conflict.

  Power - the soldier has power over life and death. Later though he feels powerless to stop his memories and guilt haunting him.

  Political - the poem coincided with increased awareness of PTSD amongst the military and aroused sympathy amongst the public - many of whom were opposed to the war.
• COMPARE

  ‘Charge of the light brigade’ - representation of a group of soldiers / war / battles

  ’Kamikaze’ - exploration of duty in war

  ’Poppies’ - two different viewpoints of war

  ’Emigree’ ‘London’ - representation of people
• KEY QUOTES

  “Rips through his life”

  ”tosses his guts back into his body“

  ”Probably armed, possibly not”

  ”His bloody life in my bloody hands”

  ”His blood-shadow stays on the street“