Exposure

• 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,'
• 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 strain 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"
• Owen personifies the east winds

  As metaphorically stabbing the soldiers with its chill
• Nature might be as dangerous to the soldiers as the enemy
• The poem's title, "Exposure", indicates the risk the soldiers face by being stuck out in the cold for extended periods of time
• By opening the poem with reference to the soldiers' "brains", Owen is also commenting on the psychological impact of war
• The line "Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous," indicates the conflicting emotions the soldiers experience, constantly on edge and watchful
• The poet here begins to use the refrain "But nothing happens" which is repeated throughout the poem
• The implication here is that this refrain extends beyond just this specific moment; it could just as well be referring to war itself
• In other words, war is futile, meaningless and changes nothing
• Wilfred Owen: '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 personifies nature as angrily "tugging" on the barbed wire


  He follows this up with a brutal simile, comparing the wind's actions to the dying twitches of men caught in the wire
• Owen suggests that the battle to survive against nature is just as dangerous as the battle against enemy soldiers


  He introduces the idea that war is always present, even when it is not immediately visible
• The use of the rhetorical question at the end of the stanza reinforces the confusion of the soldiers at the situation in which they find themselves
• The narrator observes the sun once again beginning to rise, and the only certainty in their lives is that the war drags on
• Owen's intention


  The poet here is commenting that the war is an awful, miserable, continuous cycle
• Owen's intention

  This monotony is reinforced by the repetition of the refrain "But nothing happens."
• Owen's intention


  The irony is that dawn is normally symbolic of a fresh start and happiness, but here it represents nothing but continued misery
• Owen's intention


  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 the physical war they are involved in
• War is everything
• Sudden successive flights of bullets


  Streak the silence
• Bullets


  Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow
• Soldiers watch the snowflakes wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance
• Nothing happens
• Owen's intention


  • Owen's use of sibilance 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
  • He positions nature as the greatest enemy of men
  • The poet suggests that the wind is apathetic("nonchalance") in the face of untold suffering and hardship
  • The soldiers feel as though nothing new has happened
• Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces
• We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed
• Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed
• Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses
• Is it that we are dying?
• Owen's intention is to suggest that the soldiers are so exhausted it is even a effort for them to think of anywhere other than their ghastly present environment
• The reference to the soldier's "ghosts" could imply that the men are already dead
• The poet deliberately describes the snowflakes as having "fingering stealth", personifying them as malicious and cunning
• The fact that "on us the doors are closed" implies that peace is now out of their reach
• The use of the word "cringe" suggests the men are now cowering from the weather
• What they are dreaming of is now inaccessible to them
• The happy images the soldiers imagine is designed to juxtapose with the reality they are suffering through
• In the final line, the poet attempts to answer the rhetorical question at the end of stanza two
• Owen's intention