English Lit - Exposure

• Exposure


  Wilfred Owen's World War One poem describing his experience in trench warfare
• Opening stanza


  • Describes soldiers' brains aching in the freezing cold wind
  • Soldiers are tired but have to stay awake on watch
  • Flares flying through the air confuse their memories of their position
  • Soldiers are worried by the lack of sound, they whisper and are scared but nothing happens
• Rest of the poem

  • Follows a similar format to the opening stanza
  • Poet begins to question the point of it all
  • Ultimately Owen determines the soldiers are there because they believe going to war is the only way to ensure a loving domestic life will continue for their children
• Wilfred Owen was born in 1893, joined the British army in 1915, and died in battle on November 4th, 1918
• Owen originally pursued a career in the church but gave up on that when he felt the church failed to care for those in its locality
• Owen's poetry often focused on the futility or pointlessness of war
• Poem's structure


  • Each stanza begins with a blunt and powerful sentence
  • Followed by highly emotive vocabulary choices
  • Ends with an anti-climax "but nothing happens"
• Rhyme scheme


  • a b b a c
  • Reflects the building momentum and anticipation of battle which is never realized
  • Repetitive nature reflects the repetitive and futile situation the soldiers are in
• Pararhyme


  • Two end of line words contain the same consonant sounds but not the same vowels
  • Gives a permanent sense of being nervously on edge
  • Soldiers are denied the satisfaction of full rhyme, forced to be incomplete and imperfect
• Personification of weather


  • Presents the notion that nature is more deadly than the enemy soldiers
  • Little difference to the soldiers between the weather and the enemy forces, both are killing them
• Ending


  • Contrasting "but nothing happens" creates a cyclical structure
  • Highlights the futility of war
• Poems that compare well with Exposure

  • Bayonet Charge
  • The Charge of the Light Brigade
  • Remains
  • War Photographer
• ‘Our brains ache in the merciless iced east winds that knive us’

  • shared experience
  • weather - the violent enemy
  • nature is personified
• Repetition of eclipses in lines 2,3 and 4 show they’re waiting for something to happen but nothing does
• ‘Confuse’

  ’worried’

  ’curious, nervous’

  • different emotions show why their ‘Brains ache’
• ‘But nothing happens’

  • short, simple half line sentence emphasises their boredom and tension
• ‘Our brains ache in the merciless iced east winds

  that knife us’
• ‘Sudden success bullets strike the air / less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow’
• ‘Slowly our ghosts drag home’ / ‘Dark red crusted jewels’
• ‘We cringe in holes back on forgotten dreams’ / ‘We turn back to our dying’
• ‘But nothing happens’ (motif)
• Owen depicts war a painful experience in which men suffer; however, the suffering is not what we may expect from a typical/stereotypical experience of war – Owen seeks to illuminate the true horrors of war and reality of life on the front line
• Owen highlights the monotony and futility of war ; Owen seems to reveal that the loss of life in war is meaningless and that war achieves no greater good and the sacrifice and suffer is often in vain (unnecessary)
• The poem also depicts a battle between man and nature; it shows that nature is a powerful force that was the

  enemy of men on the battle field
• The speaker describes trench warfare, but interestingly the main battle the men face is the battle against the weather and conditions – there is nothing happening and there is no fighting, but the men still suffer at the hand of nature. The poem draws attention to the suffering of the soldiers but how war itself is monotonous and mental battle. The poem can be interpreted as an anti-war poem, and Owen seeks to highlight the futility of war