How is power/conflict shown in Remains?
One way that conflict is presented in Remains is through the pain the soldier has in his
memories. The pain felt by the speaker is told through vivid imagery, ‘every round as it rips
through his life’. The violent verbs show how brutal the death was and slows down the
pace of the line. This helps the reader understand the pain the speaker feels when he
remembers the event.
However, whilst he has many painful intense memories, the poem is told using distant
language such as ‘probably’ and ‘possibly’. This could mean that the soldier has so many
horrific memories that he has become numb to them. The colloquial and informal language
used; ‘tosses his guts back into his body’, helps present the idea that the solider’s have a
lack of attachment to the horrors they see daily whilst fighting. The word ‘tosses’ is very
degrading and is used very easily in this line. This shows that the speaker is desensitized to
all the gory of war. Once again Simon Armitage uses keywords like ‘guts’ to show the
distressing reality of war.
Another war in which conflict is presented is through the speaker's guilt. In the first stanza,
the speaker talks about a looter but he is unsure of whether he is innocent or not. Probably
armed, possibly not’. The uncertainty he feels enhances his guilt. To help ease his guilt the
soldier says ‘are all of the same mind, so all three of us open fire’. The words ‘all’ helps him
feel assuage his guilt as he didn’t do it by himself. The fact that all three of them fired
helped remove the blame because they didn’t know whose bullet killed the looter. In the
final stanza, the soldier finally accepts the guilt, ‘his bloody life in my bloody hands’. The
phrase is not only metaphorical but also literal which shows the physical pain that killing
the looter caused the soldier. The repetition of the word ‘bloody’, shows that the soldier
struggles to separate his actions and the dead looter. Possibly because his unstable mind
and the constant reliving of unbearable memories make him feel dead inside.
One way that conflict is presented in Remains is through the pain the soldier has in his
memories. The pain felt by the speaker is told through vivid imagery, ‘every round as it rips
through his life’. The violent verbs show how brutal the death was and slows down the
pace of the line. This helps the reader understand the pain the speaker feels when he
remembers the event.
However, whilst he has many painful intense memories, the poem is told using distant
language such as ‘probably’ and ‘possibly’. This could mean that the soldier has so many
horrific memories that he has become numb to them. The colloquial and informal language
used; ‘tosses his guts back into his body’, helps present the idea that the solider’s have a
lack of attachment to the horrors they see daily whilst fighting. The word ‘tosses’ is very
degrading and is used very easily in this line. This shows that the speaker is desensitized to
all the gory of war. Once again Simon Armitage uses keywords like ‘guts’ to show the
distressing reality of war.
Another war in which conflict is presented is through the speaker's guilt. In the first stanza,
the speaker talks about a looter but he is unsure of whether he is innocent or not. Probably
armed, possibly not’. The uncertainty he feels enhances his guilt. To help ease his guilt the
soldier says ‘are all of the same mind, so all three of us open fire’. The words ‘all’ helps him
feel assuage his guilt as he didn’t do it by himself. The fact that all three of them fired
helped remove the blame because they didn’t know whose bullet killed the looter. In the
final stanza, the soldier finally accepts the guilt, ‘his bloody life in my bloody hands’. The
phrase is not only metaphorical but also literal which shows the physical pain that killing
the looter caused the soldier. The repetition of the word ‘bloody’, shows that the soldier
struggles to separate his actions and the dead looter. Possibly because his unstable mind
and the constant reliving of unbearable memories make him feel dead inside.
