The Manhunt

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  • Created by: Annagc
  • Created on: 27-02-17 18:10

Content

The Manhunt

  • How a husband and wife's relationship has changed after he has come home from war 
  • The metaphor shows it is a struggle and he is lost
  • He has lost his identity which is why 'Man' is used rather than his name
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Context

  • Armitage watched a documentary on the effects of PTSD
  • He was concerned with social issues and worked as a probation officer
  • He uses everyday informal language 
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Narrator

'After the first phase/ after passionate nights and intimate days

  • The wife is the narrator which makes it intimate and personal
  • Antithesis suggesta they are in love and spend all their time together
  • Repeated adverb 'after' suggests something has upset the realtionship

'Only then'

  • Repeated in four later stanzas showing he is distant and hse has to make him comortable around her again
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Metaphors

Metaphors relating to broken objects

  • 'Froze river which ran through his face' - he can't express emotion
  • 'Blown hinge of his lower jaw' - he can't talk about what happened
  • 'Damagaed, porcelain collar bone' - he can't offer support
  • 'fractured ruddre of a shoulder blade' - he has lost direction
  • 'parachute silk of his punctured lung' - he is anxious and feels like he is falling
  • 'climb the rungs of his broken ribs' - his heart has been cut off from her
  • 'grazed heart' - he has been hurt but a graze can heal
  • 'sweating, unexploded mine buried deep in his mind' - source of the problem is his mind and creates a tense mood
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Devices

'Only then could i picture the scan / the foetus of metal beneath bis chest'

  • Personificationshows the injuries have taken over the coupe's lives like a child would

Damage: blown, damaged, fractured, punctured, broken ,grazed

  • Semantic field emphasise the physical violence anf the psycological violence that continues

Care: trace, explore, mind and attend, finger and thumb, bind, feel, skirting, traced

  • Shows how careful to wife must be around him
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Structure

Free verse and thirteen two line stanzas

  • the physical jouney of the wife as she traces his injuries
  • the emotional journey that takes time

The end: 'Then, and only then, did i come close'

  • Shows she will never fully understand his suffereing
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