ANALYSIS FOR REMAINS

• “so all three of us open fire, Three of a kind all letting fly, and I swear”

  • poker reference could show how trivial he finds the nature of war
  • Dehumanises, Homophone of “Kind”, expletive “I swear”
  • Switches to first person pronoun
  • “Open fire” draws attention to militaristic euphemisms like “tackle”
  • Maybe he played rugby as a child
• “I see every round as it rips through his life ; I see broad daylight on the other side”

  • Anaphora and present tense could show the continuation of his anguish
  • Monosyllabic words with alliteration of “r” and “p” as well as sharp consonants mimic gunshots
  • “Rips” shows the fragility of human life as the memory rips through his own life
  • Hyperbolic , round is a homophone could refer to the cyclical nature of life as we live and die, broad daylight could be heaven
• “sleep and he’s probably armed possibly not ; Dream and he’s torn apart by a dozen rounds”

  • Imitates “Macbeth doth murder sleep” (2:2) and Hamlets soliloquy “To die…To sleep no more” (3:1). The dead man could be king Duncan
  • Balanced phrasing shows sleep is now a curse
  • Repetition shows his loss of rationality and reliving of Events
  • “By” could show a possible shift of guilt
• “He’s here in my head when I close my eyes dug in behind enemy lines”

  • Ambiguity: is he talking about the looters actual place of hiding or in his memory
  • “Behind” shows that his consciousness is still at the scene
  • Heavy alliterative “h” sounds mimic mirror heavy thoughts / heavy breathing (a common symptom of nightmares
  • Who is the real enemy
• “But near to the knuckle here and now; his bloody life in my bloody hands”

  • Idiom about ending his life as he can’t cope and his mental anguish
  • Mirrors act 2 scene 2 of Macbeth “will all great neptunes ocean wash this blood”
  • Rhythmic balance of “probably” shows the circularity and it is an unending memory
  • Repetition shows that guilt has blurred his logic
  • Act 5.1 “will all sweet perfumes of Arabia sweeten this little hand”
• CONTEXT:

  • Written to create awareness for returning frontline soldiers with PTSD (wasn’t taken seriously)
  • critiques those who didn’t take care of returning soldiers
  • apart of the not dead series