Exposure Flashcards
Why is the title of the poem “exposure?”
- Owen is trying to “expose” what battle was really like and how the propogana around war is fake.
What was trench life like?
- Dirty and dull (according to J . Bennet and Jack Dillon - soldiers who experienced the war.)
- Soldiers felt unsafe and uncomftorble in a place that was supposed to be shelter.
When was exposure written?
Early 1900’s
What different types of weather are described throughout the poem?
- “merciless iced winds that knive us.” - metaphorical: contrast between weather and weapons - suggesting the weather is their greatest enemy (power of weather.)
- snow
- Rain
Why is the phrase “but nothing happens” repeated throughout the poem?
- Shows how they are in an endless cycle of waiting for an attack - on edge// no one is recognising the pain they’re going through!
How is the theme of the soldiers being forgotten about shown throughout the poem?
- They hear bullets and imagine them to be a rumour of another war.
- The doors back at home are closed on them.
- God seems to have forgotten about them - they think so.
What is the main message of this poem?
- Owen is criticing the government for making men go to war (futility.) He is showing the true reality of war (physical and mental conflict) - physical coming from the weather.
How does Owen use structure to show the confusion of the soliders (internal conflict?)
- Elipses: they are looking for an answer confused what they are doing there?
- 2nd stanza: big focus shift - showing how the soldier’s thoughts are flickering too!
- Caesura when they are back home: flickering from images of home life flashing before eyes.
What is the significance of Owen describing the mad gusts of wind “like twithcing agonies of men?”
- Shows the soldiers are hallucinating- unable to stay focussed.
What is the significance of the rhetorical question: “what are we doing here?”
- They don’t know what the aim is of the war.
- Owen is criticing this fact!
Give examples when there is contrast made between physical conflict and the weather’s conflict.
- Dawn’s “melanchony army attacks in ranks of grey.”
- “bullets streak the silence less deadly than the air.”
- Accentuates how Owen’s enemy is the poor conditions not the actually conflict. Futility of war!!
What is the significance of the bullets that “streak the silence?”
- Onompatopeia. Sibilance sounds like bullets they hear.
- Reader imagines the situation they are in - shocked to see that the weather seems worse to them than the bullets.
The snow is described as doing this: “flock, pause and renew” what could this be a metaphor of?
- Shows how soldiers who died in war would just be replaced and would die for absaloutely no reason!!
What do the soldiers hallucinate when the snow hits their faces?
- They hallucinate the snowflakes to be blossoms. Dreaming about the summer.
In what instances is the weather personified and why?
- “her melancholy army”
- “feeling for our face.”
- Shows the power of nature over man!!