This deep dive covers 🔍 Stage 2 — The Dismissal: Pretending It Is Over within Remains (Armitage) for GCSE English Literature. Revise Remains (Armitage) in Power and Conflict Poetry for GCSE English Literature with 10 exam-style questions and 15 flashcards. This is a high-frequency topic, so it is worth revising until the explanation feels precise and repeatable. It is section 3 of 19 in this topic. Use this deep dive to connect the idea to the wider topic before moving on to questions and flashcards.
🔍 Stage 2 — The Dismissal: Pretending It Is Over
After the shooting, Armitage shows how the soldier attempts closure. The looting man’s body is "carted off in the back of a lorry": the verb "carted" reduces a human body to cargo; the noun "lorry" is mundanely functional, not the language of ceremony or respect. The phrase enacts the dehumanisation that soldiers are taught to perform — not out of cruelty but out of psychological necessity. The patrol moves on.
But Armitage makes the dismissal transparent. The speaker uses the phrase "End of" — a colloquial signal that the matter is closed, that there is nothing more to say. The very abruptness of the phrase draws attention to the effort required to believe it. Armitage positions the reader to see the gap between what the soldier tells himself (this is over) and what the rest of the poem will prove (this is permanent). The dismissal is a performance that fails before it begins.
Quick Check: What does the phrase "carted off in the back of a lorry" show about how the soldier handles the aftermath of the shooting?
Armitage uses the mundane, functional language of logistics to show that the soldier attempts to reduce the dead man to an object — something to be moved and disposed of, not mourned. The word "carted" carries a dehumanising weight: it is the language of rubbish collection, not of human death. Armitage suggests this psychological strategy — treating the event as administrative routine — is how soldiers attempt to survive their own actions.
Practice questions for Remains (Armitage)
The title 'Remains' works on multiple levels in Armitage's poem. Which of the following best explains all three meanings the title carries?
How does Armitage use the soldier's colloquial register to create meaning in 'Remains'? Refer to the poem in your answer.