English Literature - Poetry - Relationships - The Manhunt - Simon Armitage

Contemporary

Themes

• War and its consequences. 
• This is shown is Armitage's use of language and semantic field of destroyed body parts; metaphors used to describe injuries as a result of warfare 'blown hinge of his lower jaw', 'damaged porcelain collar-bone', 'parachute silk of his punctured lung', 'rungs of his broken ribs', 'grazed heart'.
• He also refers to the mental damage of war; 'a sweating, unexploded mine buried deep in his mind'. This quote is a reference from the speaker that the man in the poem is not only suffering from bodily damage but a form of PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder too.
• He has closed himself away from people, the speaker is trying to reaffirm the relationship. 'every nerve in his body had tightened and closed.'
• Broken relationships and a lack of connection.
• The ryhme scheme contains full rhyme and half rhyme couplets; the lack of consistancy reflects the fractured relationship and his fractured mental state.
• Careful words and phrases have…