Month: May 2016

In this essay, I am going to express how the poems ‘War Photographer’ and ‘Remains’ express the power of guilt.

In the poem “War Photographer” power is shown when the poet says “Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh.” Here, the power of his job is shown when we see him mention all the countries he has been to like a bucket list. This could also be interpreted as a powerless job because the protagonist visits all these places but only has the authority to take a photograph of these people in need instead of help them. The full stops at the end of the places is effective because it makes the reader realize that these places are more like a holiday destinations to the war photographer than a place of conflict.

in the poem “remains” the power of guilt is shown when the protagonist says “he’s here in my head when I close my eyes, dug in behind enemy lines” this shows guilt because of how the man can not get the image out of he head, when something small happens it is easy for the mind to forget whereas when something big happens like a death it is hard for the mind to forget. the word “dug” also suggests that the image has cemented itself.

The poem “war photographer” the power of guilt is shown when the protagonist says “He remembers the cries of the man’s wife” this shows guilt because the man can’t get over the cries of his wife this is like the poem remains the man can’t get over what has happened and the only thing to blame is his job. this also shows that the protagonist does realize that his job is complicated in the sense that he shouldn’t be taking photos of people suffering in a war situation. This could could also make people who he knows at home think negatively on him because of how he is making an entire country look at suffering civilians.

“But have to the knuckle, here and now, his bloody life in my bloody hands”. In this quote Simon Armitage has used repetition to show the protagonists guilty and the fact he can’t get rid of the image of a dead man. The writer also stated the word “now” which means that the protagonist is feeling guilty at this present moment. This quote also gives off a form of power. The protagonist is feeling powerless because he is currently feeling guilty due to what he has done, their is also the sense of power that comes from the feeling of guilt because the guilt is always gonna be there and it will be hard for the man to overcome, this means that the power is coming from guilt.

“His editor will pick out five or six” In this quote it shows us how the protagonists is powerless because everything he does in his job is being judged by his boss, this quote is significant because the fact the boss picks out 5 or 6 shows us that the protagonist is working for a man who only cares about his money and the money the paper is making, this has a negative effect on the protagonist because he is going to adapt to that frame of mind. There is also a sense of power because their is a strong chance that the protagonist can see these images as what they really are and see them as a chance to escape what he does for living. 

In the poem ‘remains’ simon armitage uses a short quote, “but i blink” this quote is telling you that even though time is moving fast he still has the power of guilt hanging over him, it tells us this because it don’t take long to blink and the rest of the poem tells about the feeling of guilt. it also suggests that the man is constantly thinking about it because you blink quite often and you don’t really notice it when you do so the man is starting to think how often he blinks because he is always thinking about what happened when he shot the bank robber.

I became a war photographer at the age of only 15, I was quite tall for my age so I did pretty much everything a 18 year old does at my age, when I was about 10 I wanted to do an extravagant job like Soldier, a member of the navy or a football player. But when I heard about the opportunity to find a job job what was very close to the front line but yet so far I threw myself to the interviews. About a week later I recieved an email from the company telling me I’ll start tomorrow, but only the Lord himself knew what was going to happen, there were more deaths than I ever could of imagined. The first image I captured through the lense of that death riddled camera will haunt me forever, it was a man who had been washed away with the times and a face like the lady on the famous Mona Lisa picture. When I went home to sleep after about a week and a half after starting only two thoughts raced through my mind, they were either stay or go. I decided to stay on for another week but the job never changed…but then the news about the assignation of the man himself Adolf Hitler, and when they wanted a photographer to go along I didn’t even blink twice. I wanted to be the most famous photographer in the world war. And on the 5th of May 1945 the day before I potentially took a photo of the most hated man dead and I just couldn’t sleep. The day had come where I had to take the most famous snapshot had come and I was feeling a mixture of nerves and excitement I think the nerves came from the high risk of death and the excitement came from the potential fame and money that could come out of this. At 07:53 I had a pigeon fly through my window with a note attached to the foot that said “I will get you”, I  had no idea who the note was from and what the note meant. About 45 minutes later I had a knock on the door and it was a man in an all black suit with a briefcase and inside that briefcase was the most modern and expensive camera to date, and there was another note that said the assignation will take place at 22:56 at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. This meant that I had to take a 3 hour flight to Poland and then get ready for the biggest moment of my life. So that’s what I did. At 16:38 I landed in Poland and I had a 65 minute drive to the secret location. I then set up the camera and ate what could be my last ever Cadbury’s chocolate. I then got into a car that was identical to Hitlers security car and set off, at one stage I was only one car off of Hitler. After about 15 minutes we was at Auschwitz and with me being a fluent German speaker I was told to talk to head security about where I will go and I was assigned to the roof of the camp. I had my microphone down my trousers and started to climb the ladder of death. When my crew saw j was up they sent me a message that said “50 seconds until take down”. I had adrenaline running through me, after 51 seconds I heard “he’s down” and I got probably the best picture possible. After Hitlers realised he was dead they started to smile and cheer and suddenly thousands of Jewish people were running for their lives. Once I was reunited with my team we made a bold decision to go up to his security and tell them that “we have won the war”, as I said I have the most modern camera and I managed to get a 2 minute video of when we won the war. We later went back to the guards house for tea and biscuits. And once I returned I was one of the most spoked about people in the whole of U.K.