Exposure

Question 1

Context of the poem :

Answer 1

Wilfred Owen

born in 1893, joined the british army in 1915 , then died in battle on Nov 4th 1918.

Tried to pursue a career within the church, but gave up on it because he felt that the church failed to care for those in its locality.

Poetry often focused on futility or pointlessness of war.

Question 2

How does the poet structure stanza 1 to represent how the main struggle was that anything could happen at any given time, not the fact that it did happen in time?

Answer 2

Each stanza begins with a blunt and powerful sentence,
e.g. “ Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us” These opening sentences are then followed by highly emotive vocabulary choices , in this example:

“Wearied”

“Low drooping”

“confuse”

“Worried”

“curious”

“nervous”

Then the stanza ends with an anti climatic line “ But nothing happens”

Question 3

The Rhyme scheme is ABBAC, suggesting?

Answer 3

This suggests a reflection of the building of momentum and anticipation of a battle which is never realised.

This is rigid and stayed out through the entirety of the poem, which reflects the futile situation that the soldiers are in. Just as the poem stays the same, so does the situation of the soldiers stay the same; stuck in the cold, waiting.

This technique is known as Para rhyming, when two end of line words contain the same consonant sounds but not the same vowels, like “knive us “, “nervous”. this gives a permanent sense of nervously being on edge. This is because the soldiers are denied the satisfaction of full rhyme, forced to be incomplete and imperfect.

Question 4

The use of personification is used for what reason?

Answer 4

Owen uses personification to highlight how weather is more dangerous than less deadly bullets, e.g:

“winds that knive us”

“mad gusts”

“Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army”

“air that shudders”

“pale flakes with fingering stealth”

This overwhelming use of personification presents the notion that nature is more deadly than the enemy soldiers. Clearly trhere is very little difference to the soldiers between the weather, as both are killing them.

Question 4

The ending of the poem can suggest what?

Answer 4

By already establishing in the penultimate verse that the soldiers see themselves as a necessary sacrifice to save the happy lives of the public them poem ends with the “contrasting but nothing happens”.

Structurally, the poem ends as it began, with this refrain, this creates a cylical structure, highlighting the futility of war.

Question 5

What poems compare well with this poem?

Answer 5

War photographer
The charge of the light brigade
remains
bayonet charge.

Question 6

“Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us…. Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent” suggest?

Answer 6

As if nature is divine punishment, its the enemy , not the other side.

Assonance of I, “in , iced, knive us, slows down” mimics the exposure that the poet is feeling.

We can see that in the incredible length of the lines , all 13 +

mimics the length of time that the men a re exposed to these terrible conditions. which will kill him

would assume a silent night is a good thing, in war however, it causes the soldiers anxiety , like a cancer it spreads all over the trenches showing the tension of the soldiers. Might suggest the enemy is getting ready for an attack and wanting to conceal attack. Convey’s how tiring the effort to stay awake is.

Question 7

“Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army / Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of grey,” suggests?

Answer 7

personification of the clouds coming from the east. Imagery of the weather, this is better armoured then the army, suggesting there is much more danger from the weather then the soldiers. Pathetic fallacy, relfecting the emotions of the men, perhaps showing that nature is miserable. It doesn’t want to attack the men with this army, but reluctantly it must feeling it has to do it, to expel the war.

the repetition of ranks and the assonance again of “ranks “ attacks “ a sound , the attack of nature is endless, the soldiers can do nothing about it. again we have the pathetic fallacy, conveying the shivering of the soldiers on the ground

Question 8

“So we drowse sun-dozed, littered with blossoms trickling where the black bird fusses. - is it that we are dying “ suggests?

Answer 8

Owen gives us these images of how they escape, they escape their minds. Description of summer, yet he picks on things he sees now, the semantic field of summer is contrasted with the fact that he identifies them, he sees them with snow, the sound of the wind are nopw like the sounds of a blackbirds, the sounds are irritating, even in the summer memory, he is irritated by the sound just like how he is irritated by the wind.

Wilfred Owen describes the blossoms as being littered, very negative description .

” So we drowse , sun - dozed “ - this has connotations of being a lovely pleasant lazy feeling, but here getting sleepy is a threat if you fall asleep, you will freeze to death.

the sibilance of “ So, drowSe , Sun- dozed” its seductive being used ironically, because nature is seducing him to get him to sleep, to kill him; A tactic in which Owen must avoid.

He asks the question, “ Is it that we are dying, because he can feel himself dying, he can see himself having these illusions, where the snow appears like blossom, where he gets memories of home and hes not thinking straight. The other way, if the brain is letting go, realising the brain is dying and therefore choosing to think of these happy memories as they are the speakers last.

Question 9

” Therefore , not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born, / For love of God seems dying.” suyggests

Answer 9

The justification why they are there. so its not hating to be there,

Double meaning of lie, as if we lie when they say theres a good patriotic reason to fight , furious about the conduct of the war, lying to themselves. Helps make sense “ love of God “ the metaphor is suggesting that love is dying, war is the proof of that. God would disapprove of war, an easy way to contrast with other poem, like charge of the light brigade. AS he was trying to become a vicar, this seems like an attack on his christian faith.

Question 10

” Pause over half-known faces. All Their eyes are ice, But nothing happens “

Answer 10

” half known faces” suggests they died quickly , only being a month or two at the front line, not being enough time to get know them. Or even they didnt want to form emoptional attacthments. This idea is also formed in “ All their eyes are ice “ the bodies are frozen stiff, almost like rigor, describingt the burial party, as they are completely unfeeling, war has taken that emotion away from them, the homophone of eyes , completely unable to feel.

“But nothing happens” Wants a political something to happen. For a call of release from war, a death is more preferable.

Question 11

Structure and Form

Answer 11

Half rhymes:

nervous , knive us,

salient , silent

The reason why the half rhyme is there that is that it unsettles us, The poet wants a neat solution to the war, but nothing happens. Isn’t able to get there.

Great tension within the form, every stanza is written in five lines and the five lines are approx the same length then followed by a short refrain. This suggests that the poet is in control, but the fact that the final rhyme doesnt rhyme with anything or with each other, the repetition but nothing happens, marks it out as a politicial message, one of his messages to end the war. The form conveys the soldiers wants, he wants the reader to be appaled by the conditions that the soldiers are fihghting in and also want to campaign for an end for the war.