Remains - Simon Armitage

‘blood-shadow’
‘his bloody life in my bloody hands’

• death stains a person’s conscience and memory just as it stains the street

• he is haunted by the memory - inescapable

• AO3 - taken verbatum from actual interview with solider

  • assumption that this soldier suffers from PTSD

  • scarred from the experience - he has said that ‘even drinks and drugs won’t flush him out’ or erase the image from his mind

• adjective ‘bloody gruesome nature of death OR could be being used as curse/slang

• later use of this word suggests that this event has ruined his life by having cursed him, and he suggests he regrets killing him

• structure of last stanza length breaks down

  • only two lines and the others are four

  • reflects breakdown of soldiers during the war

• ‘hands’ are a symbol of guilt

  • shift from sharing blame with the others at the beginning of the poem to taking sole responsibility for the death of the ther soldier

  • shows how PTSD can shift perspective, how memory can be corrupted / changed

‘tossed his guts into his body. then hes carted off in the back of a lorry’

• brutal imagery

  • tosses and carted off - shows how its done like a routine that they don’t think much of - it’s a natural reaction

  • done frequently and without care

  • lack of respect

    • like tossing bin bags into garbage truck

  • carted off

    • dehumanising

• body has no value - conflict causes the devaluation of human life and loss of sanctity and individuality

• rhyme between ‘body’ and ‘lorry’ works to add fluidity

  • again suggets this is routine and they are used to it

• because they have been exposed to so much death and violence they are now desensitised to it

• lost respect for life

‘on another occasion’

• poem opens in media res

  • reflects chaos of war and its unpredictability

    • serves to confuse the reader as they initially don’t know what’s going on

    • mirrror confusion of the solider

      • they are not emotionally prepared for what will come next

    • armitage making a social comment

      • suggests soliders are launched into situations they don’t fully understand and the military lack of compassion for the individuals they are risking in strategic military situations

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