Manhunt language and feelings

In ‘Manhunt’, Simon Armitage uses rhyme to reflect the togetherness of a relationship. He says “After the first phase, after passionate nights and intimate days.” As the poem goes on, the reader can start to recognise that the un-rhymed cuplets show how fragmented their relationship has become. There is imagery indicating how carefully she treats her husband. “And handle and hold the damaged, porcelain collar bone, and mind and attend the fractured rudder of shoulder blade.” The point she makes about her husband being injured and she wants to treat him. Use of alliteration with ‘handle’ and ‘hold’ puts a strain on how delicate his body must be at this time.

The form in ‘Manhunt’ is in couplets and they show the relationship between the husband and wife and represent their love after the first phase, “after passionate nights and intimate days”. Simon Armitage makes some couplets rhyme and some not, this represents their love due to the fact that sometimes she is okay with him but because he is so fragile she can set him off very easily and sometimes she feels he doesn’t love her because he cannot show it in the state he is in. Armitage does this to help the reader understand her struggle for his love and how she isn’t giving up on love. Also it is quite widely spaced which could indicate how long she is willing to wait.
Different injuries are introduced in different couplets, which link this poem with the idea of togetherness. In each couplet, the reader explores the husband’s body and mind in the same slow process that the wife has done. The mixture of full and half rhyme has connotations that their relationship is not complete and that she is in the process of not only fixing him, but their relationship as well. “Hold/bone”. This poem is in couplets, and this has connotations of the phrase “everything comes in two’s”. This is a biblical reference (Noah’s ark – all the animals were in twos) and this shows that the writer is a strong believer of faith and how