🥶 exposure

Question 1

Who is the poet of Exposure?

Answer 1

Wilfred Owen

Question 2

Summary of Exposure

Answer 2

The speaker describes the terrifying experience of a night in the trenches in WW1. The poem shows the trauma experienced by the soldiers in the trenches.

Question 3

5 key quotes of Exposure

Answer 3

1) ‘But nothing happens’
- REPETITION
- STRUCTURE OF THE STANZAS IS ANTI-CLIMATIC: Blunt and powerful sentences -> highly emotive vocab and tension builds up -> ends anti-climatic. Intensity and waiting and anti-climatic let down makes us empathsize with the soliders, an EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER they go through on the daily basis
- The poems also ends with this line - at the end of war supposed to be brave and sacrifice the happy lives of the public, but then the end of the poem is depressing and bleak and ends as it began -> CYCLICAL STRUCTURE nothing has been achieved
- Similar quotes: ‘snow-dazed’ ‘sun-dozed’ ‘blossoms’ ‘blackbird fusses’ -> season changing shows how long they are in the trenches for just waiting

2) ‘Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive / us…’
- Nature is personified in a sinister way to create fear in the listener. Nature is more deadly than the enemy soldiers

3) ‘Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence’
- SIBILANCE: Sounds like bullets flying or sounds of shivering soldiers -> negative atmosphere and horrific image
- Or to 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, and this breaks the silence.

4) ‘: and ;’ caesura used
- CAESURA: Creates a division when thinking back to home

5) For love of God seems dying’
- RELIGIOUS REFERENCE: Implies that there is a lack of religiously imposed morality remaining in the situation - highlighting the cruelty of it
- Owen presents the soliders to be carrying out their moral duty to protect the innocent people at home. He uses a contemporary listener’s association of Christianity with morality to show the soldiers’ selflessness -> tied to the idea of Jesus suffering and dying to save humanity.

Question 4

Context for Exposure

Answer 4

OWEN IN WAR
- He suffered from shellshock in the hospital and was advised to write about his experiences in his poetry, so his work expresses the true horror of war rather than him internalizing it. He dispelled “the old lie” by exposing the horrific reality of war
- He believed the war was pointless and this is the recurring theme throughout his poetry, and how war is futile

BRITISH ATTITUDES TO WAR IN 1914
- In contemporary Britain, war was romanticized to the point that it had gained mythical status
- Poets described how brave, honorable, and exciting war was, but Owen wanted to expose the harsh reality.

Question 5

Form and structure of Exposure

Answer 5

CYCLICAL STRUCTURE & ANAPHORA
- Shows the repetitive nature of conflict
- Futility of war and that nothing has been achieved

ELLIPSES
- first 3 lines
- Emphasizes the waiting and boredom of the soliders. It 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

NO DRAMATIC MOMENT
- Slow process of dying
- Slow pace

Question 6

Key themes in Exposure

Answer 6

• Soldiers not killed by the enemy, but by the cold and weather
• Nature is personified as the enemy rather than the actual opposition
• Boredom is a key theme
• Psychological effect of war is explored
• Nature is the antagonist throughout the poem to imply that nature is an even bigger threat than the actual enemy

Question 7

Poems to compare with Exposure

Answer 7

EXTRACT FROM THE PRELUDE
- S: Nature is an inescapable force, overwhelming influence of nature causing them to realize their own insignificance
- D: Prelude shows nature as expanse but Exposure shows nature’s power as violent

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
- S: Critical of military leader decisions that led soldiers to death by charging or by leaving them in the trenches freezing to death. Both criticize how violence and military mistakes continue to repeat themselves
- D: Brigade has less freedom in the message by bayonet had. Brigade is more violent rash action and Bayonet detests waiting in the trenches

BAYONET CHARGE
- S: Both soldiers realized that war is largely different to what they have been told. Psychological element of fighting.
- D: Exposure soldiers are anticipating and are prepare to fight but bayonet shows extreme reluctance