EXPOSURE

• "Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us..." - sibilance is reflective of the winds harsh sound + adjective personifies wind as unforgiving and relentless
• "Low, drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient" - 'flares' were used to illuminate the battlefield but they are described to create a sense of weakness, seem tired mirroring the soldiers exhaustion + mental disorientation and psychological strain + 'salient' is a part of the battlefield in the enemy's territory reflects time and place lose meaning in prolonged trauma of trench warfare
• "Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous," - asyndetic list creates a rushed pace which reflects soldiers panic
• "But nothing happens." - monosyllabic refrain highlights the overwhelming sense of accepted defeat + reflects the soldier always being on edge
• "Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles" - harrowing imagery of men dying as they get caught in barbed wire during war
• "What are we doing here?" - rhetorical question reflects Owen's views on the futility of war
• "The poignant misery of dawn begin to grow..." - juxtaposition of a new day/beginning and hope, with the constant cycle of suffering
• "Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army" - personification of nature as a threat reflects how the soldiers suffered at the hand of nature as well as humans
• "Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence" - sibilance is mimetic of the harsh gusts of wind and firing of bullets which creates a sense of attack
• "the wind's nonchalance" - nature as sublime, it can be so powerful yet in such a casually cruel manner
• "Is it that we are dying?" - rhetorical question reflects the psychological impact of war as soldiers are confused from all the trauma they have endured
• "Shutters and doors, all closed: on us the doors are closed,-" - repetition emphasises an overwhelming sense of hopelessness
• "We turn back to our dying"
• "Tonight, this frost will fasten on this mud and us" - image of frostbite + verb 'fasten' suggests this sense of inescapability + this idea that the soldiers are one with the earth
• "Shrivelling many hands, puckering foreheads crisp" - physical impact of war
• "All their eyes are ice," - ambiguity suggesting that they are dead OR soldiers are desensitised due to PTSD