Week 2 Exposure poem

"Our brains ache"

Could be the shell shock or the collective pronoun our which refers to a shared horrid and terrifying experience

"merciless iced east winds that knive us"

personification (cruel and murderous wind); sibilance (cutting/slicing sound of wind); ellipsis (never-ending).

talks about how dangerous nature is and how religious imagery as east winds in the bible brought Egyptian plague

"Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous"

agony of waiting for war, sibilance suggest the sound of the whispering of the men, aural adjectives

"But nothing happens"

EXPOSURE

Repetition of "but nothing happens" throughout the poem gives the readers a sense of the boredom caused by waiting.

It also hints at the pointlessness of war.

explains the waiting of the violence after and during war which relates the psychological suffering of soldiers.

"Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles "

simile, uniting nature and war together, owen thinks the barbed wire is brambles and agonies of men is people on it

"Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war"

As if there were actually a war going on

~ Biblical reference

'Rumour' ~ Like glorifying propaganda

the war is so far away and spans over so much of the country that it feels like theres more wars going on

"what are we doing here?"

Rhetorical question to show soldiers don't know what they are doing there-confusion

asking about the futility of war, asking god?,asking governments? a higher power?

"dawn massing in the east her melancholy army "

dawn should be a new day however every day it brings the same suffering experience, melancholy army is clouds and storms

"Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces"

fricative alliteration, suggest the snow flakes was a gentle thing however in the context of war becomes lethal

"for the love of god seems dying"

* wanted to join the clergy,

become resentful of the church and he starts to lose his faith in god

*or is he saying that gods love for them/ his subjects are dying,

*or is there no better way to please God is sacrificing your life is the ultimate act of devotion of religion