remains

• “On another occasion, we get sent out”-

  in media res- confuses the reader as they don’t know what’s going on, this mirrors the confusion of soldiers who aren’t emotionally prepared/ Armitage making a societal comment in suggesting soldiers are launched into situations they don’t fully understand/ reflects chaos and unpredictability of war/ a typical operation in the life of solder, they’re expected to deal with repeated exposure to suffering and horror without any help
• “Sort of inside out pain itself, the image of agony”-


  gory imagery shows how hard they went to kill him/ shows the transition from colloquial to emotional. Colloquial language comes from trying to pretend he hasn’t been impacted/ writing poems is the process of going over memories and letting his actual emotions come out whilst on leave and escaping from the conflict zone
• “Tosses his guts back into his body”-


  casual action which juxtaposes horror that’s being described/ sibilance emphasises sinister mood which speaker is trying to pass off as normal but the reader is horrified/ metaphor of feeling sick alludes to soldier feeling like this after it happened/ uncaring, lack of respect and treating it with no respect/ action they’re used to/ body has no value as conflict causes devaluation of human life- loss of sanctity
• “But I blink”-


  a sudden change of atmosphere/ connotes waking up/ flashbacks becoming impossible to distinguish between what is being awake to a dream/ having to blink to try to make a difference/ merging of reality and memory
• “But near to the knuckle here and now. His bloody life in my bloody hands”-


  shows discordance which shows his lack of control/The writer is exploring the psychological impact of killing someone which implies it's not natural for humans to kill others/ by the end, the speaker accepts responsibility but takes the blame completely/demonstrating how PTSD can warp how a person views past events/ poem could be a turning point to save him or ending his life