'Exposure' by Wilfred Owen, quote analysis flashcards (created by Faith)

written by Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen

Born in 1893, Wilfred Owen was a soldier and a poet during ww1. He was sadly killed one week before the end of the war and was killed in action. He was a Christian but rejected the church and lost faith. He obtained shellshock but wasn’t properly treated for it. this means he was disillusioned by his role as a soldier. He was very angry about how badly soldiers were treated and he wanted to show people what the war was actually like through his poems and expose the reality of the hardships to those who are at home and who were ill-informed. He also wrote ‘Dulce Est Decorum Est’

structure

* exposure has a cyclical structure and has anaphora used within it to show the repetitive nature of conflict

how is power presented in this poem?

* the power of nature is being represented as incredibly strong and controlling


* it is attacking the soldiers which shows how it can be an enemy
* we can also see the lack of power within the soldiers in the war, it seems like everything is against them and they question

‘our brains ache’

* ‘our’ refers to soldiers. tired, bad mental state, soldiers have little power


* the word ‘brain’ instantly shows the psychological impact the war has on these soldiers and how they’re being forced to bear witness to seeing ‘half-known faces’ die
* physical suffering of being exposed to the elements

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‘merciless iced east winds that knive us’

* personification of the wind is used in a sinister way to inflict fear among the reader.
* Nature is being shown as an enemy to the soldiers.
* the conditions in the trenches were harsh and cold.
* Sibilance mimics the strong slashing of the wind and how its attacking them.

‘wearied we’

* the use of alliteration makes the phrase difficult to say, alluding to the difficulty of the soldier’s lives

‘worried by silence, centuries whisper, curious, nervous’

* the use of asyndetic listing creates a rushed panicked pace and contrasts with the content of the poem

‘the mad gusts tugging on the wire’

* ‘mad’ angry, insane, perhaps reflecting mental state of soldiers, they’re going insane/mad/crazy- shell shock
* personification of the wind again shows how controlling it is as thereis the violent verb of ‘tugging’

‘what are we doing here’

* rhetorical question implies that the speaker is questioning his motivation to fight
* also questioning his place in the world
* links to later ‘is it that we’re dying?’
* low moral, lacking purpose, futile, perhaps disorientated

‘dawn massing in the east her melancholy army’

* metaphor for the rising sun
* morning is an enemy
* the soldiers aren’t looing forward to having another day at war, it seems never ending

‘sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence’

* sibilance is mimicking the sound of bullets
* they’re being shot at

‘deadly… snow’

* snow is also a threat
* juxtaposition as snow is stereotypically light and gentle but at war it is dangerous and ‘deadly’
* hyperbole is emphasising how disruptive even small things like a bit of snow is

‘pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces’

* nature is being personified as evil
* ‘pale flakes’ is referring to the snow
* sinister, stealthy, enemy, attacking them

‘snow dazed’ ‘we drowse sun-dozed’

* stunned, confused, overwhelmed
* both sides of nature are tiring them out

‘we turn bac to our dying’

* blunt, passive statement shows the soldiers’ disillusionment with their cause

‘but nothing happens’

* repeated at the end of most stanzas
* emphasises the agony soldiers felt waiting for something to happen
* gives a sense of foreboding and dread