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War Photographer + Remains English AQA Poetry Anthology - Power and Conflict
Grade 9 comprative essay on war photographer and remains
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Compare the ways poets present ideas about mental conflict in ‘War Photographer’ and in oneother poem from ‘Power and conflict’.
In both ‘War Photographer’ and ‘Remains’, the poets create two narrative voices that are both
very accustomed to war and its effects. But still, despite their familiarity with war, experience
severe mental conflict because of it. In ‘War Photographer’, Carol Ann Duffy presents to the
reader an experienced war photographer who is tortured by the photographs that he takes of
war victims. Similarly, in ‘Remains’, Simon Armitage presents to the reader a soldier, who at first
seems quite indifferent to the effects of war. However, as the poem progresses the reader can
see how the effects begin to haunt him after he kills someone.
In the beginning of ‘War Photographer’, Duffy exposes the reader to the mental conflict that
occurs when one has an occupation that is closely linked with war by her use of imagery . To
commence the poem, Duffy creates a setting where the war photographer is in a “darkroom”.
Although this is referring to a literal darkroom used in photography, it can also be viewed in a
metaphorical way where the “darkroom” represents the specific place in the photographer's
mind where he tries to process the tragedies that he has seen. Additionally, Duffy adds to this
setting by showing that the photos are “ordered in rows”. The adjective “ordered” not only
presents the victims of war as insignificant objects that one can change to their pleasing, but
also shows how war is so abhorrent and disgusting that the photographer has to objectify the
victims in order to cope with the merciless effects of war.These examples show the mental
conflict that comes with war causes the victims to have to adapt their way of thinking in order
manage it. Contrastingly, in ‘Remains’, Armitage presents the attitude of the narrative voice in
the beginning of the poem completely differently to Duffy. Initially, Armitage shows that the
soldier in the poem does not experience any mental conflict due to the turmoil of war but instead
is quite unconcerned with it . This nonchalance is immediately shown in the opening verse “on
another occasion”. The determiner “another” suggests to the reader that the soldier does not
hold high regard to this situation because “another” denotes a circumstance that has already
happened more than once before. This disinterest is further emphasised by the repetitive use of
colloquial language such as: (“legs”, “well”, “dozen”) that contrasts with the graphic language:
(“guts”, “inside out” “hit” ). This contrast is Armitage’s way of saying that soldiers do not fully
understand the extent of the trauma that they are experiencing until they leave the situation. The
difference in initial reaction between the two narrative voices could suggest that witnesses to
war such as the photographer are able to immediately experience the mental battle that comes
with war whereas the actual victims of war do not suffer this conflict until later.
Additionally, in both ‘War Photographer’ and ‘Remains’, the poets both explore how mental
conflict intensifies when the narrators are no longer physically at the war scene. In ‘War
Photographer’ Duffy illustrates how the photographer is more haunted by the victims’ suffering
when he is back in England compared to when he was at the war front. This difference is
depicted by Duffy using a semantic field of gothic language for examples: (“half-formed ghost”,
“cires”, “blood stained “) to describe the formation of the photo compared to the photographer’s
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