Summary The Manhunt - Overview & Analysis

The Manhunt – Simon Armitage
CONTEXT:
 Eddie Beddoes was injured in Bosnian Conflict in 1990’s
 Eddie had PTSD after the war
 ‘The Manhunt’ was originally aired as part of a Channel 4 documentary, Forgotten
Heroes: The Not Dead, in which ‘the painful truth of lives damaged beyond help is made
meaningful for the rest of us’.
 The poem describes the human cost of the conflict as it describes Laura Beddoes’
experience on her husband’s return and the effect on their relationship of the physical
and mental scars that he bore.
 He was injured by a bullet that ricocheted through his body injuring him everywhere.

RHYME SCHEME:
 The poem is made up of 13 couplets, many of which do not rhyme. This makes the
poem seem fragmented, similar to the mental state of the injured soldier.
 The poem describes the phases of a wife's search for answers from her injured husband
who has recently returned from a war zone.

TONE & MOOD:
 Intimate
 Ominous
 Awkward/Reluctance
 Vulnerable
 Mood changes throughout
 Romantic
 Emotional

THEMES:
 War/Warfare
 Transience/Change
 Death/Mortality
 Women
 Fragility
 Memories
 Relationships/Love
 Freedom/Confinement
 Time
 Injustice
 Identity