Similarities Between Nettles And Manhunt

In ‘Nettles’ and ‘Manhunt’ both poets explore pain using different methods. Within Nettles, Scannell uses a direct method telling you about the physical afflictions from the beginning, he uses emotive language and personification to develop his points. The poet explores physical trauma using the father as the narrative voice, the poem tells the story of an innocent boy who falls into the ‘Regiment of spite’. As the poem progresses, the poet reveals a deep emotional pain, experienced mainly by the father but also the son. Armitage uses an indirect method in Manhunt, leaving you to read in-between the lines. The poem is about the physical and emotional scars the soldier is left with from war but also the emotional effect on people close to him.

When a parachute is punctured it is ineffective, like his lung, it could also mean that the soldier feels that he is no use to anyone. By using an alliteration when describing his lung it makes you look at the words ‘parachute’ and ‘punctured’ which gives you the semantic field of war and military. The word silk makes his lung sound delicate and in turn makes punctured sound more violent. ‘Blown hinge of his lower jaw’, symbolizes physical and emotional pain, as it could mean he has a broken jaw or it could be a metaphor meaning that he won't talk to Laura about his

‘White blisters beaded on his tender skin’, shows the physical pain inflicted on the boy, the poet has used an alliteration of the letter B to emphasise the injury. By using the word ‘tender’ it shows how soft and vulnerable the boy’s skin is and in contrast how violent the nettles are. We know the blisters are causing the boy pain, ‘with sobs and tears’, this again creates the impression that the boy is young and vulnerable. Scanell uses an oxymoron when describing the ‘nettle bed’, because nettles are seen as horrible and pain inflicting whereas a bed is comfortable and