Exposure

• Who wrote exposure?

  Wilfred Owen
• Owen criticises war's futility and unnecessarily suffering
• He condems war meaningless, refusing any ideas of glory or heroism
• Presents nature as a more pressing threat than any human enemy- however, it is a human war that exposes the soldiers to the fury of winter.
• "Exposure"

  • Exposing film to light= reality behind media depiction of heroism
  • Revelation of secrets
  • Facing the elements - harm without protection.
• "our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us..."
• "But nothing happens"
• "watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire like twitching agonies of men among it's brambles"
• "Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence.

  Less deadly then the air that shudders black with snow."
• "But nothing happens" X4

  • Refrain throughout the poem including the last line
  • Establishing a wartime scene of frustrating monotony = soldiers are denied the chance of real combat.
  • The entirety of war: suffering changes nothing. Deaths are rendered futile
  • Ends on a hopeless, bitter note: sacrifice and suffering of soldiers have no real impact on war.
• "our brains ache"

  • "Our" - collective pronoun for soldiers in ww1

  - constant vigilance through the night.
• "in the merciless iced east winds that knive us."

  • Wind personified as 'merciless' metaphorically stabbing soldiers with chill.
  • Sibilance: hushes and menacing quality to weary anticipation.
  • Immediately introduced soldiers' mental state and physical environment.
• "the mad gusts tugging on the wire"

  • "Mad" : frantic, chaotic (like war)

  - war is meaningless and illogical too

  • "Wire" (barbed wire) defends trenches : wind destroys soldiers defenses.
• "like twitching agonies of men among it's brambles"

  • Extended personification of the wind
  • Sound of wind compared to dying soldiers: shocking graphic imagery.
  • Could be the first real details The public read of war during ww1 - exposing the truth.
• "Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence."

  • Jarring contrast to previous refrain
  • Intense sibilance - hissing, whooshing sound of bullets in the air
  • Monotony broken suddenly: ten followed by natural dangers dwarfing other horrors.
• "less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow "

  • Nature over powers human dangers