Exposure

• 'I am not proud' - Owen uses repetition here to emphasise how much he despises himself for being alive when his friends aren't
• 'they will not speak again' - this is an example of dramatic irony as we know that some of them will survive to tell their story, however Owen suggests that war has taken away all hope from these men
• 'their eyes are wild but full of tears' - the soldiers have been fighting for so long that they can no longer distinguish between friend or foe, their emotions are raw
• 'The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells' - Owen is using onomatopoeia here to create an auditory image of the sound of war
• 'And all went lumbering back as though they were shaken off from sleep' - Owen is describing soldiers returning from battle like zombies which creates a sense of horror at their condition
• Conclusion 1-Exposure is written from an authentic first person perspective, as Wilfred Owen wrote it in 1917 whilst he was fighting in the trenches of World War I. The topic of the poem is war, but it specifically focuses on the sheer monotony of daily life for many soldiers, as well as the harsh conditions they were exposed to, even when not actually engaged in fighting.
• Conclusion 2

  The suffering is made worse, in the speaker’s mind, given the fact that the war seems to accomplish nothing ultimately. Owen used simple language in this poem because he wanted people to understand the awful realities of war.
• Themes in exposure -conclusion


  Therefore, the main themes in the poem are the conflict between the propaganda and the harsh reality of war, and human versus nature as the soldiers are engaged in their own struggle to survive the bleak conditions, as well as the war itself.
• Exposure


  Poem by Wilfred Owen describing the terrifying experience of a night in the trenches in the first world war, showing the trauma experienced by soldiers
• Nature in Exposure


  • Personified in a sinister way to create fear in the listener
• Use of asyndetic listing

  Creates a rushed, panicked pace and contrasts with the content of the poem
• Rhetorical question "What are we doing here?"


  Implies the speaker is questioning his motivation to fight
• Religious reference "for love of God seems dying"

  Implies a lack of religiously imposed morality remaining in the situation, highlighting the cruelty of it
• Alliteration "our brains ache in the merciless iced winds"

  Makes the phrase difficult to say, alluding to the difficulty of the soldier's lives
• The opening closely resembles the opening of Keates' poem "Ode to a Nightingale", showing his influence on Owen
• 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 allows the fifth line to stand out, emphasising its message. The monotony of the rhyme scheme mirrors the monotony of war.
• Pararhymes


  • Create an underlying atmosphere of unease, leaving the reader unsatisfied to mirror the soldiers' feelings of unease
• Chaotic structure


  • Mirrors the chaos and panic of war
• Cyclical structure


  • The last line of the first and last stanza is "but nothing happens", connecting the end and beginning to emphasise the futility
• Anaphora


  • The repeated "but nothing happens" emphasises the futility of war
• Caesura


  • The colon separating "home" from the trenches depicts the barrier between the two places
• Ellipses


  • Slow the pace of the poem to force the reader to experience the same frustration as the soldiers
• Religious references


  Present the soldiers as carrying out their moral duty to protect the innocent people at home, showing their suffering is for a greater cause
• Caesura


  Punctuation used by Owen to separate home from the trenches
• Caesura


  • "slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires"
• Ellipses


  Used by Owen to emphasise the waiting and boredom of the soldiers
• Ellipses


  • "east winds that knive us..."
  • "the night is silent..."
  • "our memory of the salient..."
• Ellipses


  • Slow the pace of the poem to force the reader to experience the same frustration as the soldiers due to their suffering being stretched out with time
• Religious references


  Owen presents the soldiers to be carrying out their moral duty to protect the innocent people at home
• Religious references


  • "for love of God seems dying"
• Sibilance


  Used to position nature as the enemy, mirroring the sound of gunfire
• Sibilance


  • "sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence"
• Personification of nature


  Nature symbolises the antagonist throughout the poem, juxtaposing the nurturing role traditionally associated with a female nature figure with the aggressive connotations of an army
• Personification of nature


  • "dawn massing in the east her melancholy army"
• Actual battle


  Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow
• Auditory imagery


  Used to present the ongoing battle as insignificant
• Auditory imagery


  • "gunnery rumbles"
  • "like a dull rumour of some other war"
• Passage of time


  Represented by the description of the season changing
• Metaphor


  Used to convey the despondency felt by the soldiers who believe that they are being forgotten