Exposure

• Exposure

  Poem by Wilfred Owen
• Themes

  • Conflict
  • Suffering
  • Nature
  • Reality of War
  • Patriotism
• Content, Meaning and Purpose


  • Speaker describes war as a battle against the weather and conditions
• Imagery

  • Cold and warm reflect the delusional mind of a man dying from hypothermia
• Purpose

  • Owen wanted to draw attention to the suffering, monotony and futility of war
• Wilfred Owen: '"My theme is war and the pity of war"'
• Despite highlighting the tragedy of war and mistakes of senior commanders, Owen had a deep sense of duty: "no loath, we lie out here"-not bitter about his suffering
• Form and Structure


  • Contrast of Cold Warm Cold imagery conveys physical (cold) suffering and mental (PTSD or shell shock) suffering. Pararhymes (half rhymes) ("nervous/knife us") only barely hold the poem together, like the men. Rhyme scheme ABBA and hexameter gives the poem structure and emphasises the monotony
• Language

  • Semantic field of weather: weather is the enemy
  • Personification (cruel and murderous wind) "the merciless iced winds that knive us..."
  • Sibilance (cutting/slicing sound of wind)
  • Ellipsis (never-ending)
  • Repetition of pronouns 'we' and 'our' conveys togetherness and collective suffering of soldiers
  • Personification (mad gusts tugging on the wise)
  • Repetition of "but nothing happens" creates circular structure implying never ending suffering
• Written in 1917 before Owen went to win the Military Cross for bravery, and was then killed in 1918