Exposure

• The poem describes the terrifying experience of a night in the trenches during the first world war.
• The poem shows the trauma experienced by soldiers in the trenches.
• The soldiers are waiting in a trench, scared to rest because they could be attacked at any time.
• Nothing eventually happens, they watch the nature and the trenches which all seem to show signs of suffering.
• They can hear fighting in the background, dawn only seems to bring more misery and suffering.
• The cold is another aggressor and appears to be more of a threat than the enemy soldiers.
• The passing of time is marked by snow transitioning into signs of spring.
• Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) originally pursued a career in the church but felt it was hypocritical as it failed in its duty to care for its dependants.
• Owen became a soldier and was killed in battle one week before the armistice in 1918.
• War poetry was a new form at the time as there hadn’t been a major war in more than 100 years.
• Owen’s inspiration in his writing was drawn greatly from the work of John Keats and Siegfried Sassoon.
• Sassoon later acted as a mentor to Owen whilst he suffered from shellshock in hospital.
• At this time, a therapist advised Owen to write about his experiences in his poetry, so his work expresses the true horror of war rather than him internalising it.
• The poem was written in 1917 whilst Owen was fighting in the trenches which creates an authentic first person narrative as the poem was written by an actual soldier in the midst of conflict.
• In contemporary Britain, war was romanticised to the point that it had gained mythical status.
• Owen dispelled “the old lie” by exposing the horrific reality of war.
• Nature is personified in a sinister way to create fear in the listener.
• The situation remains the same despite their suffering so they aren't achieving anything.
• The consistency of the rhyme scheme shows the monotony of war, as does the regular stanzas.
• The use of sibilance and fricatives in the phrase "Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous, but nothing happens" creates a sense of unease.
• The consistency of the rhyme scheme allows the fifth line to stand out, emphasising its message.
• The poem opens with the line "Our brains ache in the merciless iced winds" which resembles the opening of Keates' poem "Ode to a Nightingale", showing his influence on Owen.
• The use of pararhyme between "winds that knife us" and "curious, nervous" creates an underlying atmosphere of unease.
• The speaker repeats "but nothing happens" to emphasise the futility of war.
• The use of alliteration in the phrase "Our brains ache in the merciless iced winds" makes it difficult to say, alluding to the difficulty of the soldier's lives.
• It is often interpreted that Owens wasn't objecting to war itself but against unnecessary wars and poor leadership.
• Owen employs a chaotic structure in his poem to mirror the chaos and panic of war.
• The use of sibilance and fricatives in the phrase "Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient" creates a horrific image.
• The last line of the first and last stanza is "but nothing happens" which connects the end and beginning of the poem to emphasise the fact that nothing has happened in that time.
• By opening the poem with a reference to "brains", Owen establishes the poem's focus on the psychological impact of war.
• By only rhyming the consonants, Owen leaves the reader unsatisfied to mirror the soldiers' feelings of unease.
• Owen builds rich imagery throughout the stanza and then the simple fifth line creates an anti-climax.
• This use of asyndetic listing creates a rushed, panicked pace and contrasts with the content of the poem.
• This rhetorical question implies that the speaker is questioning his motivation to fight.
• Nature is further personified to be evil here.
• This religious reference implies that there is a lack of religiously imposed morality remaining in the situation- highlighting the cruelty of it.
• Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us.
• Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent.
• There is a barrier between the two places as the soldiers cannot return and must instead stay and fight in the cold.
• The ongoing battle is further presented to be insignificant through Owen’s use of auditory imagery in “gunnery rumbles” and “like a dull rumour of some other war”.