exposure

• Exposure is written from an authentic first person perspective, as Wilfred Owen wrote it in 1917 whilst he was fighting in the trenches of World War I. He was killed just before the armistice in 1918, and the poem was published after his death. The topic of the poem is war, but it specifically focuses on the sheer monotony of daily life for many soldiers, as well as the harsh conditions they were exposed to, even when not actually engaged in fighting. The suffering is made worse, in the speaker’s mind, given the fact that the war seems to accomplish nothing ultimately. Owen used simple language in this poem because he wanted people to understand the awful realities of war. Therefore, the main themes in the poem are the conflict between the propaganda and the harsh reality of war, and human versus nature as the soldiers are engaged in their own struggle to survive the bleak conditions, as well as the war itself.
• Lines 1-5

  • The first stanza describes the physical conditions the soldiers were experiencing, as well as their mental state.
  • The soldiers are physically and mentally exhausted
  • Their "brains ache" with the stain of being constantly vigilant in case of attack
  • Ironically, it is the wind, rather than the enemy, which attacks them
  • The silence is the thing that concerns them the most, as the soldiers have no way of knowing when or where the next attack will come from.
  • Attempts to light up the landscape with "low, drooping flares" only serves to make the situation more confusing
  • But despite all of the tension and watchfulness, "nothing happens"
• "in the merciless iced east winds that knive us"

  Nature is personified in a sinister way to create fear in the listener. Owen indicates that nature might be as dangerous to the soldiers as the enemy. This is a hostile environment where even nature is against them.
• "Wearied we keep awake"

  The use of alliteration here makes the phrase difficult to say, alluding to the difficiulty of the soldier's lives. The w/s sounds mimic whispers. 'We' is used to demonstrate that the narrator is among the soldiers. The soldiers fear the silence.
• "Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous"

  This use of asyndetic listing creates a rushed, panicked pace and contrasts with the content of the poem. It indicates the conflicting emotions the soldiers experience, constantly on edge and watchful.
• Lines 6-10

  • While the soldiers keep a look-out, the wind rattles the barbed wire set up as a defence around the trenches
  • It sounds like the twitching of dying men caught on the wire
  • They can hear the constant gunfire from the north, but it sounds so far as if its in a different war
  • The narrator questions why they are even there, if there is no actual fighting
• "Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire,

  Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles.

  Northward, incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles,

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

  What are we doing here?"

  • Owen again personifies nature as angrily "tugging" on the barbed wire
  • He follows this up with a brutal similie, comparing the wind's actions to the dying twitches of men caught in the wire
  • Again, Owen suggests that the battle to survive against nature is just as dangerous as the battle against enemy soldiers
  • In this stanza, Owen also introduces the idea that war is always present, even when it is not immediately visible
  • The use of rhetorical question at the end of the stanza, reinforces the confusion of the soldiers at the situation in which they find themselves.
• Line 11-15

  • The narrator observes the sun once again beginning to rise, and the only certainty in their lives is that the war drags on
  • There seems to be no end to this living hell
  • The narrator likens the dawn to a military leader gathering its army of freezing storm clouds
  • This army of nature then "attacks once more", but once again there is no actual physical action.
• "The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow..

  We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy.

  Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army

  Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of grey,

  But nothing happens."

  • The poet here is commenting that the war is an awful, miserable, continuous cycle
  • This monotony is reinforced by the reptition of the refrain "But nothing happens."
  • The irony is that dawn is normally symbollic of a fresh start and happiness, but here it represents nothing but continued misery
  • Again, Owen uses the personification of dawn as a military leader to emphasise once more that the battle the soldiers are engaged in is more than just physical war they are involved in.
• "Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence.

  Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow,

  With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause, and renew,

  We watch them wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance,

  But nothing happens."

  • Owen's use of sibliance at the start of this stanza reflects the sudden break in the monotonous silence
  • The poet is suggesting that the weather conditions still pose a greater threat to the soldiers than bullets themselves
  • Nature is the greatest enemy of men
  • The wind is apathetic in the face of untold suffering and hardship
  • This shortbreak in the silence does little to alleviate the continous misery.
• 'We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed,

  Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed,'

  The poem reveals a masterful manipulation of language to convey the multiple themes of physical misery, psychological torture and a growing sense of the futility of it.  What is now more familiarly known as a foxhole takes on an entirely different sort of connotation when described merely as a hole and the cringing seems to describe not just the expressions within it, but the physical act of entering. “Forgotten dreams” could refer equally to those ambitions left behind before war hurtled them into the trenches and to being the dreams forgotten by those back home. The “grassier ditches” bring to mind both a longing to back home in better places as well as the melancholic anger fueling envy of those lucky men enjoying that greener grass back home, safe and warm and far away from the multitudes of misery.
• "But nothing happens"

  Following from 'all their eyes are ice', Owen ends the last stanza the same way as the first stanza highlighting the absence of change and suggesting that even death itself does not change anything
• "all their eyes are ice"

  Metaphor refers to the eyes of the living and the dead men. For the deceased, the metaphor is literal and gives a vivid description of how they have been overpowered by nature, and for the living, it hints that the men are so disassociated that they have become entirely emotionless.
• "for love of god seems dying"

  Polysemous - could suggest their love for god is dying or thats god love for them is dying. This religious reference implies that there is a lack of religously imposed morality remaining in the situation - highlighting the cruelty of it.
• "shutters and doors, all closed: on us the doors are closed,"

  The caesura in this line creates a clear division which reflects how the men are shut off from their previous lives and homes. This could be down to neglectful families or dissasocation from themselves caused by trauma of war. This also reflects the soldiers' concern that the people back home were loosing interest in their fate as the war dragged on.
• "pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces"

  Personified imagery of the weather being so deadly it would actively seek out the soldiers in order to inflict more misery on them. fricative sounds also emphasise the maliciousness of the weather.
• Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us . . .

  Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . . Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . .

  Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous, But nothing happens.


  By opening the poem with a reference to "brains", Owen establishes the poem's focus on the psychological impact of war. This reference could also be interpreted in multiple ways. He could be referring to the physical brain and the literal ache from the cold causing the soldier's physical suffering from their exposure to the elements. Owen could also however, be referring to the mind and the psychological pain inflicted by being forced to bear witness to seeing "half-known faces" die.
• Rhyme scheme

  • The consistency of the rhyme scheme allows the fifth line to stand out, emphasising its message. The consistency of the rhyme scheme shows the monotony of war, as does the regular stanzas.
  • Owen builds rich imagery throughout the stanza and then the simple fifth line creates an anti-climax. This mirrors the way in which the soldiers must stay constantly alert, yet nothing ever happens. This highlights the futility of war.
• Pararhymes

  Owen creates an underlying atmosphere of unease through the pararhyme between "winds that knife us" and "curious, nervous" .

  By only rhyming the consonants, Owen leaves the reader unsatisfied to mirror the soldiers' feelings of unease. The reader is left anticipating a rhyme in the same way the soldiers are on edge anticipating a battle. This unconventional use of rhyming creates the impression that the poem is only just being kept together just like the soldiers are only just coping.
• Owen employs a chaotic structure in his poem to mirror the chaos and panic of war.

  Cyclical structure

  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.
• • The speaker repeats "but nothing happens" to emphasise the futility of war. The situation remains the same despite their suffering so they aren't achieving anything. This leads the speaker to question "what are we doing here". It is often interpreted that Owens wasn't objecting to war itself but against unnecessary wars and poor leadership.
• Owen uses punctuation to separate home from the trenches. The colon used in "slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires" depicts the soldiers to be imagining the warmth of their homes. Yet there is a barrier between the two places as they cannot return and must instead stay and fight in the cold.
• Ellipses

  The first three lines end with ellipses ("east winds that knive us...", "the night is silent...", "our memory of the salient..." to emphasise the waiting and boredom of the soldiers. Owen's use of ellipsis slows the pace of the poem to force the reader to experience the same frustration as the soldiers due to their suffering being stretched out with time.
• Religious references

  Owen presents the soldiers to be carrying out their moral duty to protect the innocent people at home; the speaker says "for love of God seems dying". Owen uses a contemporary listener's association of Christianity with morality to show the soldiers' selflessness. This can be tied to the idea of Jesus suffering and dying to save humanity. A similar sense of acceptance of death is shown in "we turn back to our dying". The poem could also be interpreted to show the soldiers losing their love for God. Their faith is "dying" as it is difficult to reconcile the theory of a benevolent God with the reality of conflict. This links to Owen's short career in the church resulting in his view of it being hypocritical.
• Sibilance

  Sibilance is used in "sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence" to position nature as the enemy. The sibilant consonants mirror the sound of gunfire which shows the reader that the snow is the real threat as snowflakes slice through the air in the same way as bullets. This breaks the silence previously described. It appears the battle the soldiers were waiting for is not with the opposition but with nature instead. The snowfall is not the "dull rumour of some other war", it is an immediate threat. The sinister atmosphere is perpetuated by the serpent like connotations of the sibilance used.
• Personification of nature

  • Nature symbolises the antagonist throughout the poem to imply that nature is an even bigger threat than the actual enemy. In "dawn massing in the east her melancholy army", Owen juxtaposes the nurturing role traditionally associated with a female nature figure with the aggressive connotations of an army.
  • Simultaneously, Owen minimises the significance of the actual fighting occurring. He makes a direct comparison by describing the actual battle as "less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow" which, through the deathlike connotations of the colour black, ironically suggests that the soldiers have gone away to fight with nature instead of the opposition. 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".
• Reality of war: Boredom


  The passage of time is represented by the description of the season changing from "snow-dazed" to "sun-dosed" with "blossoms" and "blackbird fusses". This shows how long they are in the trenches for just waiting.
• Reality of war: Soldiers are forgotten

  Owen conveys the despondency felt by the soldiers who believe that they are being forgotten. The metaphor "On us the doors are closed" implies that as those at home in safety carry on with life as normal, they forget about the soldiers dying for them. Owen laments the military leaders' view of soldiers as dispensable by depicting the soldiers as indistinguishable from mud in "this frost will fasten on this mud and us".
• Reality of war: Suffering

  Owen's description of the environment is indicative of an individual in a great deal of pain. He negatively personifies the wind as "mad gusts tugging on the wire like twitching agonies" and the wire is referred to as "brambles".
• Reality of war: Fear

  The soldiers are unable to sleep due to their fear driven constant state of alertness. The speaker states that "wearied, we stay awake because the night is silent" as if they are scared to sleep even though "nothing happens". The second there is a lapse in their concentration, the "dull rumour of some other war" poses a threat.