Flashcards for The Manhunt

Eddie Beddoes (the injured soldier)

Eddie Beddoes is the silent, wounded heart of Simon Armitage's dramatic monologue poem The Manhunt.

character

Laura (the wife/speaker)

Laura is the first-person narrator and emotional heart of The Manhunt, a poem by Simon Armitage inspired by a documentary about the wives of soldiers.

character

“After the first phase, after passionate nights and intimate days”

This opening line from Éric Vuillard's La Bataille d'Occident (also referenced in "The Manhunt") evokes a sense of retrospective sadness, contrasting the intensity of early intimacy—"passionate nights and intimate days"—with what comes next: distance, loss, or pursuit.

Narrator · Opening

“only then would he let me trace the frozen river which ran through his face”

This poignant line is from Simon Armitage's narrative poem The Manhunt, part of a collection featuring the voices of wives and partners of soldiers returning from war (it was later adapted into a documentary by Channel 4).

Laura (the soldier's wife, narrator)

“the blown hinge of his jaw”

This striking phrase originates from Simon Armitage's narrative poem The Manhunt (published in The Not Dead, 2008), voiced by Laura, the wife of Eddie Beddoes, a soldier who returns from a peacekeeping mission with deep physical and psychological scars.

Laura (the soldier's wife, narrator)

“and handle and hold the damaged, porcelain collar-bone”

This line is from Simon Armitage's poem The Manhunt, created for his 2007 BBC documentary project and later included in The Not Dead (2008).

Laura Beddoes (persona/narrator)

“the fractured rudder of shoulder-blade”

This powerful phrase is taken from Simon Armitage's narrative poem The Manhunt, which appears in the 2008 collection The Not Dead.

Laura (the soldier's wife/partner, narrator)

“a foetus of metal beneath his chest”

This striking image is drawn from Éric Vuillard's Manhunt (French: La guerre des pauvres / Fusillade), a piece of literary fiction deeply rooted in historical violence and pursuit.

<UNKNOWN>

“and feel the hurt of his grazed heart”

This line is taken from Simon Armitage's narrative poem The Manhunt, which is part of his 2008 collection The Not Dead.

Laura Beddoes (the wife, poetic speaker)

“his grazed heart. Only then could I bind the struts and climb the rungs of his broken ribs”

This powerful passage is from Simon Armitage's poem The Manhunt, which is part of a collection of dramatic monologues spoken by the wives and partners of soldiers who were injured in the Falklands War and was later adapted into a Channel 4 documentary.

Laura (wife of Eddie Beddoes)

“and mind his broken heart, and mind his broken mind”

This haunting, rhythmically doubled line is from Simon Armitage's narrative poem The Manhunt (published in The Not Dead, 2008), spoken by Laura, the wife of Eddie Beddoes, a soldier who returned from a peacekeeping mission in Bosnia with severe physical and psychological injuries.

Laura (Eddie's wife, the poem's speaker/narrator)

“the bullet which had finally buried itself in his brain”

This phrase originates from Sebastian Faulks's novel Birdsong, although it’s often linked to The Manhunt, a work by Simon Kernick or possibly the translation of Emile Zola's novel.

Narrator

The Body

In The Manhunt, the body symbolizes both the endurance of love and its boundaries.

The Bullet

In The Manhunt, the bullet symbolizes the lasting trauma and the unseen wound that lingers long after the violence is over.

The Frozen River

In The Manhunt, the frozen river represents a halt to everyday life and the risky line between safety and danger.

Extended Metaphor

The poem revolves around a rich metaphor of physical exploration, where the wife’s careful examination of her husband’s war-damaged body serves as a map of his psychological and emotional scars.

Simile

Armitage employs simile throughout to make hidden trauma visible.

Imagery

The poem is filled with vivid physical imagery that transitions from the outer body to the inner.

Couplet

The poem is almost entirely made up of rhyming or near-rhyming couplets, and this structure carries significant thematic weight.

Slant Rhyme

Throughout the poem, Armitage opts for slant rhyme rather than perfect rhyme — "mind" / "behind," "thumb" / "numb," "chest" / "arest" — and this intentional imperfection is key to the poem's emotional impact.

Metaphor

Beyond the overarching metaphor, individual metaphors serve specific purposes.

Symbolism

The bullet lodged near Eddie's heart serves as the poem's main symbol.

Enjambment

Armitage uses enjambment intentionally and effectively.

Dramatic Monologue

The poem is presented entirely through the voice of Eddie Beddoes's wife, creating a dramatic monologue where a distinct speaker, separate from the poet, recounts a private and emotionally intense situation.

Motif

The motif of cold and hardness—words like "frozen," "metal," and "mine"—runs throughout the poem, weaving through the imagery to create a growing sense of emotional numbness and military violence.

Volta

The poem's volta comes toward the end, when the wife's careful, steady exploration hits a wall.

Pathetic Fallacy

The "frozen river" of Eddie's collarbone serves as a poignant example of pathetic fallacy, projecting a sense of emotional coldness—the numbness of trauma and the freezing of feelings—onto the physical landscape of his body.

dramatic monologue

A poem in which a single speaker addresses the reader directly, revealing their inner thoughts and feelings as if speaking aloud, while the listener remains silent.

noun · Chapter 1

manhunt

An organised, determined search for a person; here used both for military search operations and for a wife's intimate search to find the man her husband used to be.

noun · Chapter 1

scarring

Permanent marks or hardened tissue left on skin after a wound has healed; here used to trace the physical path of Eddie's injuries back to their origin.

noun · Chapter 1

hinge

The joint that allows a hinged part to open and close; here applied to the jaw, describing the joint where the lower jaw connects to the skull and enables the mouth to move.

noun · Chapter 1

blown

Shattered or destroyed by an explosion; here describing the jaw joint as having been violently damaged by blast or impact during combat.

adjective · Chapter 1

foetus

An unborn creature still developing inside the body; here used as a disturbing metaphor for a bullet embedded deep in the chest, curled and hidden like something growing within.

noun · Chapter 1

widened the search

Extended the area or scope of looking for something; here meaning Laura moved beyond one part of Eddie's body to explore further, tracing his injuries more broadly.

phrase · Chapter 1

collarbone

The long, slender bone running from the shoulder to the base of the neck; here it is one of the specific bones Laura tenderly examines on Eddie's injured body.

noun · Chapter 1

plate

A flat piece of metal surgically inserted into the body to hold broken bones together or protect damaged tissue after serious injury.

noun · Chapter 1

scar tissue

The tough, fibrous skin that forms over a wound as it heals, often thicker and less flexible than normal skin; here it marks the sites of Eddie's combat injuries.

noun · Chapter 1

unexploded mine

A buried explosive device that has not yet detonated; here used figuratively for the unresolved psychological trauma — PTSD — still active and dangerous inside Eddie's mind.

phrase · Chapter 1

sealed and signed

Closed off and made official, as a legal document is stamped shut; here describing Eddie's deepest psychological wound as locked away and inaccessible, even to his wife.

phrase · Chapter 1