Exposure

• Exposure

  Poem by Wilfred Owen describing the terrifying experience of a night in the trenches in World War I
• Wilfred Owen

  • Originally pursued a career in the church but felt it was hypocritical, became a soldier and was killed in battle one week before the armistice in 1918
  • War poetry was a new form at the time as there hadn't been a major war in more than 100 years
  • Owen's inspiration was drawn greatly from the work of John Keats and Siegfried Sassoon, who acted as a mentor to Owen whilst he suffered from shellshock
• Exposure

  • Poem written in 1917 whilst Owen was fighting in the trenches, creating an authentic first person narrative
  • In contemporary Britain, war was romanticised to the point that it had gained mythical status, which Owen dispelled by exposing the horrific reality of war
• Nature is personified in a sinister way to create fear in the listener
• Asyndetic listing creates a rushed, panicked pace and contrasts with the content of the poem
• The rhetorical question "What are we doing here?" implies that the speaker is questioning his motivation to fight
• Nature is further personified to be evil
• The use of alliteration makes the phrase "our brains ache in the merciless iced winds that knive us" difficult to say, alluding to the difficulty of the soldier's lives
• The blunt, passive statement "but nothing happens" shows the soldiers' disillusionment with their cause
• The opening "our brains ache in the merciless iced winds" closely resembles the opening of Keates' poem "Ode to a Nightingale", showing his influence on Owen

  The reference to "brains" establishes the poem's focus on the psychological impact of war, referring to both the physical brain and the psychological pain
• Rhyme scheme

  • The consistency of the rhyme scheme allows the fifth line to stand out, emphasising its message and showing the monotony of war
  • The rich imagery built throughout the stanza and then the simple fifth line creates an anti-climax, mirroring the way the soldiers must stay constantly alert yet nothing ever happens, highlighting the futility of war
• Pararhymes


  Owen creates an underlying atmosphere of unease through the pararhyme between "winds that knife us" and "curious, nervous", leaving the reader unsatisfied to mirror the soldiers' feelings of unease
• Structure


  • The chaotic structure mirrors the chaos and panic of war
  • The cyclical structure with the repeated line "but nothing happens" emphasises the futility of war
  • The anaphoric repetition of "but nothing happens" also emphasises the futility
  • The caesura with the colon depicts the barrier between the soldiers' homes and the trenches
  • The ellipses slow the pace to force the reader to experience the same frustration as the soldiers
• Religious references


  Owen presents the soldiers as carrying out their moral duty to protect the innocent people at home, with the line "for love of God seems dying" implying a lack of religious morality in the situation