Structure in the Remains

Point 1

“On another occasion, we get sent out to tackle looters raiding a bank”                       He seems relaxed, he doesn’t seemed concerned with anything happening at the beginning of the poem. He’s telling his story. “His bloody life in my bloody hands”. The speaker has become depressed.

Point 2

The last verse of the poem only has two lines so it will stand out. This helps the poet to focus on the guilt of the speaker.

Point 3

“The drink and the drugs won’t flush him out/he’s here in my head when I close my eyes”. The enjambment helps the poet continue the point about how the man cannot get away from the image of the dead man in his head.

Through the structure of Armitage’s poem he communicates a feeling of guilt. At the beginning of the poem, the speaker seems calm and unconcerned with the events happening. He talks about “another occasion” which he was “sent out” in the beginning just as if it were a story. However, by the end of the poem the speakers persona has completely changes from unconcerned and calm to depressed and guilty. Towards the end of the poem we start to realise how the man feels broken after killing the man and cannot live with himself. Armitage shows us this feeling of utter guilt in the last verse of the poem. The last verse ends only in two line, whereas every other verse ends in four. The last verse consolidates the feeling of guilt in the speaker as he feels unable to live a regular life anymore.