Exposure

• Structure

  • Anti climatic ending of each stanza, “But nothing happens”
  • Repetitive rhyme scheme ABBAC - shows the boredom and on going sense of wait in war
• Context: Wilfred Owen was a soldier in WW1, he died on the battlefield but still saw the horrors of war

  Owen was also against war
• “Merciless iced east winds that knive us”


  Personification of the weather attacking the soldiers, showing the real battle is the weather
• Silence, sentries, whisper, curious, nervous


  Sibilance emphasises how lonely the trenches were
• “What are we doing here?”

  Rhetorical question highlights the hopelessness
• “Flowing flakes that flock”


  F sounds mimick the bullets firing

  Describes snow with alliteration to emphasise how deadly it was
• “Gods invincible spring our love is made afraid”

  Loosing faith in God “field or fruit” may represent the Garden of Eden and is being juxtaposed with the battlefield
• The use of caesura “therefore, not loath, we lie” slows the pace which could infer the soldiers life coming to an end or how the war is neverending
• But nothing happens

  The process of war hasn’t ended yet