exposure

• Owen became a soldier and was killed in battle one week before Armistice in 1918, however during his time being a soldier he was disillusioned and known to suffer from shellshock
• ' merciless iced east winds that knive us' - nature is personified in a sinister way to create fear in the reader
• ' worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous' - the use of asyndetic listing creates a rushed panicked pace and contrasts with the content of the poem
• 'wearied we' - the use of alliteration here makes the phrase difficult to say, alluding to the difficulty of the soldier's lives
• 'twitching agonies' - this is an uncomfortable image to hear
• ' what are we doing here?' - this rhetorical question implies that the speaker is questioning his motivation to fight
• ' sudden successive flights ' - the use of sibilance and fricatives here create a horrific image
• ' pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces- ' - nature is further personified to be evil here
• ' -we turn back to our dying' - this blunt, passive statement shows the soldiers' disillusionment with their cause
• ' for love of god seems dying.' - this religious reference implies that there is a lack of religiously imposed morality remaining in the situation - highlighting the cruelty of it
• by opening the poem with a reference to ' brains', Owen establishes the poem's focus on the psychological impact of war, this reference could also be interpreted in multiple ways, which referring to the physical brain and the literal ache from the cold causing the soldier's physical suffering from their exposure to the elements
• the consistency of the rhyme scheme allows the fifth line to stand out, emphasising its message and the consistency of the rhyme scheme shows the monotony of war
• Owen builds rich imagery throughout the stanza and then the simple fifth line creates an anti-climax and this mirrors the way in which the soldiers must stay constantly alert, yet nothing ever happens this highlights the futility of war
• Owen creates an underlying atmosphere of unease through the pararhyme between ' winds that knive us' and ' curious, nervous' and by only rhyming the constants, Owen leaves the reader unsatisfied to mirror the soldier's feelings of unease, further the reader is left anticipating a rhyme in the same way the soldiers are in edge anticipating a battle and this unconventional use of rhyming creates the impression that the poem is only just being kept together just like the soldiers are only just coping
• Owen repeats the last line of the first and last stanza is ' but nothing happens' which connects at the end and beginning of the poem to emphasis the fact that nothing has happened in that time
• the speaker repeats ' but nothing happens' to emphasise the futility of war and in the situation remains the same despite their suffering so they aren't achieving anything and this leads the speaker to question ' what are we doing here', further it is often interpreted that Owens wasnt objecting to war itself but against unnecessary wars and poor leadetship
• Owen uses punctuation to separate home from the trenches and the colon used in ' slowly our ghosts drag home : glimpsing the sunk fire' depicts the soldiers to be imagining the warmth of their homes, yet there is a barrier between the two places as they cannot return and must instead stay and fight in the cold
• the first three lines end with ellipses ' east iced winds that knive us... ' , ' the night is silent...' and ' our memory of the salient...', which emphasises the waiting and boredom of the soldiers, further Owen's use of ellipsis slows 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
• Owen presents the soldier to be carrying out their moral duty to protect the innocent people at home ; the speaker says ' for love of god seems dying', Owen uses a contemporary listener's association of Christianity with morality to show the soldiers' selflessness, further this can be tired to the idea of Jesus suffering and dying to save humanity
• the poem could also be interpreted to show the soldiers losing their love for god and their faith is ' dying' as it is difficult to reconcile the theory of a benevolent god with the reality of conflict, which links to Owen's short career in the church resulting in his view of it being hypocritical
• sibilance is used in ' sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence' to position nature as the enemy and the sibilant consonants mirror the sound of gunfire which shows the reader that the snow is the real threat as snowflakes slice through the air in the same way as bullets - this breaks the silence previously described and it appears the soldiers were waiting for is not with the opposition but with nature instead and the sinister atmosphere is perpetuated by the serpent like connotations of the sibilance used
• nature symbolises the antagonist throughout the poem to imply that nature is an even bigger threat than the actual enemy and in ' dawn massing in the east her melancholy army' , Owen juxtaposes the nurturing role traditionally associated with a female nature figure with aggressive connotations of an army
• simultaneously, Owen minimises the significance of the actual fighting occurring and he makes a direct comparison by describing the actual battle as ' less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow', which through the deathlike connotations of the colour black, ironically suggests that the soldiers have gone away to fight with nature instead of the opposition, further the ongoing battle is further presented to be insignificant through Owen's use of auditory imagery in ' gunnery rumbles' and ' like a dull rumour of some other war'
• the passage of time is represented by the description of the season changing from ' snow-dazed' to ' sun-dozed' with ' blossoms' and ' blackbird fusses' this shows how long they are in the trenches for just waiting
• Owen conveys the despondency felt by the soldiers who believe that they are being forgotten and the metaphor ' on us the door are closed' implies that as those at home in safety carry on with life as normal, they forget about the soldiers dying for them, further Owen laments the military leaders' view of soldiers as dispensable by depicting the soldiers as indistinguishable from mud in ' this frost will fasten on this mud and us'
• Owen's description of the environment is indicative of an individual in a great deal of pain and he negatively personifies the wind as ' mad guests tugging on the wire like twitching agonies' and the wire is referred to as ' branches'
• the soldiers are unable to sleep due to their fear driven constant state of alertness and the speaker states that ' wearied, we stay awake because the night is silent' as if they are scared to sleep even though ' nothing happens', further the second there is a lapse in their concentration, the ' dull rumour of some other way' poses a threat