Compare how the poems ‘War Photographer’ and ‘Remains’ are related to theme of power

Caroline Duffy wrote the mesmerizing poem ‘War Photographer’ which captures the peculiar challenge faced by people whose job requires them to record the terrible, horrific events of war without being able to directly help their subjects. She also reveals the difficulties of such an occupation, accounting the emotional distress these persons experience after witnessing such brutal conflict. Simon Armitage wrote ‘Remains’, an intriguing poem where he tells how a man and two other officers opened fire on a looter who may or may not have been armed. Later he feels heavily guilty about the raw brutality of the killing and every time he walks down the street glancing at the blood stain of the victim he feels mortified and this affects him mentally and emotionally. I will be analyzing these two poems, concluding how they are related to the theme of power.

The power of authority is evident in Remains. The character as well as the other two officers didn’t show insight before firing on the suspected armed looter. The poem accounts “we get sent out to tackle looters raiding a bank… one of them legs it up the road, probably armed, possibly not”. From last words we learn that the officer wasn’t convinced that suspected looter was even armed, a specification which only then permits an officer to open fire against the suspect. The account continues, “Myself [and two others] are all of the same mind, so all three of us open fire, three of a kind, all letting fly”. What makes the running theme regarding the power of authority even more significant is the brutality of the killing. These officers abused the authority bestowed upon them to such a horizon that one of the officers “tosses his guts back into his body” to then be undignifiedly “carted off in the back of a lorry”.

The power of responsibility is also evident in War Photographer. He begins the process of inputting the photographs depicting the conflict he’s accounted in a tray of special liquid in order to preserve them, to which the action is likened to “as a priest preparing to intone a mass”. There is a strong sense of imagery described in written word in this part. “In his dark room he is finally alone” gives the impression that his work is highly exclusive and secretive. Then it goes on to say “the only light is red and softly glows”. The red light of the darkroom has connotations of the light that burns continuously in Catholic churches to symbolize the presence of Christ and also of blood. All the while the room is likened as a “church” which tend to be grand structures with splendid architecture, contradicting the description of a small “dark room” with a soft glow of red. Although, we can reason that the importance of this dark room is as significant as a church. And the occupation, “restoring war photographs” is as principal and paramount as a priest preparing to intone a mass. Such a job bares great responsibility – accounting, restoring, preserving and documenting photographs of conflict for generations to see – it’s quite a feat. This is why the power of responsibility is evident in War Photographer.

The power of memory is evident in Remains also. The character is guilty of what he’s done and is finding it tremendously difficult to forget. As he and the two other officers slaughter the suspected looter, he sees “every round as it rips through his life”. This is the moment the memory becomes implanted deep in the character’s memory. After everything else and a significant time goes by, the protagonist says “his [the victim’s] blood shadow stays on the street”. We could perceive this simply as a blood stain. But if we think, a shadow is only seen as a result of a reflection of something. And this reflection could be the officer’s memory and guilt. His guilt implanted in his memory is denying him of not visualizing the blood that was once there when he brutally fired at him. He walks over this very street where the slaughter took place “week after week”. Soon he has a dream about what happened on the day of the firing. By this point his guilt is so great that he takes to alcohol and drugs but they don’t “flush him out” or in other words, rid of this memory. “He’s here in my head when I close my eyes… his bloody life in my bloody hands”. This officer is experiencing insurmountable bloodguilt. He can’t stop thinking about the victim even when he’s sleeping and he feels that he is completely guilty of the slaughter despite two other officers firing with him”. This is why the power of memory is prevalent in Remains as the character is severely emotionally distressed although a long time has gone by since the day of the killing.

The power of conflict and its effects on a person’s emotional state is evident in War Photographer. We can understand that the war photographer may feel very distressed that he could only account the terror, whilst he had to witness the conflict whilst having no mean of helping his subjects. This in turn has caused emotional distress for him. The photographer’s hands are shaking as he organizes the images though they “did not tremble” when taking the photo outfield. This implies that in order to function and do his job properly in the field, the photographer must be able to distance himself from the subjects of his photographs. However, he is able to let down his guard in the privacy of the darkroom as he finally allows himself to react to the terrible suffering he was forced to witness and record. The war photographer is thoroughly relieved when he arrives home to England, to “fields which don’t explode beneath the feet of running children in nightmare heat”. Clearly, he experienced much fear outfield taking the photographs. The opening line “something is happening” in stanza three injects drama and suspense into the poem and suggests the photographer is not wholly in control of the development process and his memory causes him to flashback to an experience, depicted in a very peculiar manner: “A stranger’s features faintly start to twist before his eyes, a half formed ghost.” I believe this to be an image of a man in his dying moments. He remembers “the cries of this man’s wife”, yet he had to “seek approval… to do what someone must”. So this war photographer, despite the critical, depressing moment, had to, without coming across as inhumane, politely ask the man’s spouse if he could take a picture for his collection. Clearly, the prevalence of the power of  conflict and its effects on a person’s emotional state is evident in War Photographer because, the protagonist experiences peculiar, nightmare-like flashbacks which cause him to react emotionally to the images he’s taken and make him behave in abnormal manners.

However, to conclude, how do these two intriguing poems relate to the theme of power?

These two poems both source their themes from the power of memory. The power of memory prevents the protagonists from returning back to their normal emotional states and lives. In War Photographer, the journalist trembles as he holds the mass of the photographs in his hands, showing that within him, there is a highly distressed witness, and he feels very relieved as he returns home to safety, although connotations such as “something is happening” as a sudden stanza beginning shows that the protagonist is yet not in control and emotional flashbacks torment him. Additionally, Remains too also depicts the power of memory as the officer is experiencing insurmountable guilt as a result of his murder, succumbing to drugs and alcohol only to unsuccessfully rid his memory.

Clearly, the power of memory have been very significant in these two protagonist’s lives following the event of conflict they experienced.

On the other hand, there is an evident running theme of responsibility and authority within these two poems. In War Photographer, as the journalist begins organizing his files, the author likened the process as a priest preparing to intone a mass, a correlation showing that this occupation bears much responsibility and even pressure, much like a priest. Furthermore, the power of authority was shown in Remains as the officer didn’t even second guess the presumed looter – he just fired at him – all three of the officers in fact.

And from this, the two poems also harmonize through the power of authority.

Personally, I find that Remains depicts the significance of these particular powers better because it much more vividly and thus, emotionally, accounts the petrifying reality of the effects of blood guilt, even retelling that one may even resort to very harmful substances due to the mental, emotional even spiritual torture that is murder. And by the protagonists assumption that a citizen was a looter also shows that people in authority, likely even today can abuse their authority and escape persecution for it. War Photographer on the contrary, though it had the same theme, the poem had a much more poetic tone and some stanzas were difficult to understand.