The Manhunt - Quotes, Context and Form & Structure
- Created by: Noah_S
- Created on: 21-03-19 18:38
View mindmap
- The Manhunt
- Simon Amitage
- 2007
- Middle
- "Only then could I bind the struts"
- Implies that she is starting to fix him to what he was like before he went to war.
- A strut support a structure - Suggesting that she is trying to get him supported mentally.
- "and feel the hurt / of his grazed heart"
- More optimistic tone - his heart is only damaged and not broken, suggesting he could love again.
- His heart is damaged, suggesting he maybe struggling to let people back into his life.
- "Only then could I bind the struts"
- Context
- Eddie/Laura Beddoes
- Eddie is the solider (who served in Bosnia) in the play.
- Point of view is from Laura.
- She traces a path that a bullet went through Eddie.
- Eddie suffers from PTSD.
- War
- Lots of soldiers come back with PTSD.
- Armitage felt that he was writing an elegy or a memorial for people who had been injured or killed at war.
- Eddie/Laura Beddoes
- Beginning
- "the frozen river which ran through
his face"
- Describes the scar from his injuries - showing a physical change.
- Metaphoric language for his love being frozen, suggesting that he is stuck.
- "‘fractured rudder of shoulder-blade"
- The adjective "fractured" suggests damage and incompletion due to the war.
- The common use of nouns related to the body makes it sound more real and serious.
- "the frozen river which ran through
his face"
- Form and Structure
- Each stanza is only two lines.
- Implies the small steps the wife had to take to reconnect her husband.
- Gives the poem a fragmented feel, like their relationship.
- Irregular Rhyming Couplets
- Reflects their irregular life when he returns from war.
- “Only then” is
repeated at the start of four stanzas
- A technique called anaphora.
- Helps to convey the slow process the wife went through to ‘find’ her husband again
- Each stanza is only two lines.
- End
- "every nerve in his body had
tightened and closed"
- The determiner "every" implies that his whole identity has been affected by war.
- His nerves are "tightened and closed", suggesting that his new identity is more colder than before the war.
- "only then, did I come close"
- The line emphasises the distance between husband and wife - the reader questions if the wife can fully connect with the soldier.
- "come close" implies that the wife is still searching, showing that the relationship isn't what it once was.
- "every nerve in his body had
tightened and closed"
- Simon Amitage
Comments
No comments have yet been made