Remains and exposure

• Dramatic monologue


  A poem in which a single speaker who is not the poet expresses their thoughts and feelings
• Simon Armitage's 'Remains'


  • Depicts a soldier who has first-hand experienced the complexities of conflict
  • Resulting in devastating psychological torture after shooting a civilian in Iraq during the war (2003-2011)
• Wilfred Owen's 'Exposure'


  • Explores the inhospitable natural conditions that further exacerbated both physical and psychological consequences for soldiers during World War One
• Both speakers in 'Remains' and 'Exposure'

  • Have been subject to immense physical and mental torture due to the complexities of war
  • Have undeniably suffered permanent mental injuries
• Speaker in 'Remains': ''I see every round as it rips through his life–/I see broad daylight on the other side.''
• Violent imagery in 'Remains'

  • Powerfully conveys the speaker's shock and the devastating consequences of conflict
  • Consonance in 'every', 'round', 'rips' and 'through' may echo the haunting rhythm of bullets as they teared through the civilian's body
  • Emphasis upon the violent verb 'rip', which reflects the substantial force at which the civilian was shot
  • Use of anaphora in 'I see' suggests the speaker is replaying these memories repeatedly in his mind, and is relentlessly tortured by the memory of the events
• Simon Armitage's 'Remains' is based on an interview with a soldier stationed in Basra, Iraq, in 2008
• Many soldiers suffered from intense PTSD and found it extremely difficult to readjust post-war
• Counselling, despite being offered, was turned down by many soldiers for fear of ridicule
• Speaker in 'Exposure': ''the merciless iced east winds that knive us''
• Harsh assonance in 'Exposure'


  • Mimicks the sound of the wind
  • Combined with the violent verb 'knive' personifies the wind as a murderous enemy
  • The adjective 'merciless' has connotations to extreme cruelty and malice, suggesting that nature appears to be a fiercer force than the enemy soldiers
• The winter of 1917 during World War One was said to be 'the coldest winter in living memory'
• Owen himself was a soldier during the war, and he and his fellow soldiers were forced to live outside in freezing conditions for two days
• The massive losses sustained by both sides combined with the horrific weather conditions did little to lift soldiers out of their misery
• PTSD


  Post-traumatic stress disorder
• The speaker in 'Remains'


  Is suffering from an overwhelming sense of guilt
• Speaker in 'Remains': '"He's here in my head.../ Dug in behind enemy lines"'
• Fricative alliteration in 'Remains'

  • Mirrors the speaker's feelings of restlessness and unease
  • The metaphor 'dug in' connotes a sense of permanence and entrapment, of which the speaker is struggling to escape
• The soldier interviewed explained that it was the first time he had ever ended someone's life, and the memory kept replaying in his head
• The speaker in 'Exposure'


  Seems to be crippled by hopelessness
• Speaker in 'Exposure': ''For love of God is dying''
• This quote


  Places enormous emphasis upon the contaminated outlooks soldiers had been left with post-war<|>Shows how the soldier is struggling to make sense of the war that is being fought, resulting in both their disillusionment with the war and his dissipating belief in God
• Owen cleverly uses his poem to reveal the realities of the war, which were misleadingly projected as scenes of glory by the British press during the war
• Armitage may have intended to create awareness for PTSD and evoke sympathy within readers for those suffering from guilt
• In contrast, Owen may have sought to illuminate the true horrors of the war, to diminish the misleading rumours of fighting for prestige and honour
• Both 'Remains' and 'Exposure' are extremely effective in revealing the devastating physical and psychological effects of war
• Owen is particularly successful in providing a collective voice for the millions who suffered during the war
• Armitage provides an invaluable insight into the effects of PTSD on the individual
• The connections we can make between the two illuminate the indelible impact war can have on the human psyche