Exposure

• "Merciless iced east winds that knive us"

  • semantic field of cold = conditions of warfare
  • knive = personification = an enemy
• "But nothing happens"

  • in stanza four: a literacy crescendo for nothing to happen, frustrates reader
  • quote is repeated is throughout
  • nothing = boredom prominant throughout
• "For love of God seems dying"

  • love = soldiers abandoned from God's omnibenevolence
  • dying = questions faith (weird bc Owen was religious), dying also juxtaposes God being immortal
• "We only know war lasts"

  • we only know = innocent young boys (who lied about their age to enlist) tricked from the propaganda, reader feels sympathy
  • lasts = not fighting, just surviving
• "For us the doors are closed"

  • us = accepted death is near
  • doors =smybolism for opportunities outside of the trenches
  • closed = they've been abandoned by their country