Exposure

Question 1

What is the structure like throughout the poem?

Answer 1

Circular.

Question 2

What does the poem start and end with?

Answer 2

‘But’.

Nothing happens in the opening or closing stanzas.

Question 3

What do the opening and closing stanzas show?

Answer 3

The repetitive nature of conflict.

Question 4

What does the rhetorical question and ellipses show?

Answer 4

Futility of suffering.

Question 5

What does the inclusive language show?

Answer 5

‘We’ ‘Our’.

Show suffering of more than one solider.

Question 6

What does the poet cover?

Answer 6

One day in the life of conflict.

Question 7

Name some language techniques used?

Answer 7

Similes.
Metaphors.
Personification.

Question 8

Alliteration and sibilance does what?

Answer 8

Capture the sounds of war despite the fighting being distant.

Question 9

What does the weather show?

Answer 9

Personified as the enemy throughout.

Question 10

What are the stanzas like?

Answer 10

Contrasting.

Regular.

Question 11

What is the tone like throughout?

Answer 11

Bitter.

Sombre.

Question 12

What does the title show ‘Exposure’?

Answer 12

Left uncovered.
Vulnerable.
Unprotected.

Question 13

“Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us”

Answer 13

Wind is causing deliberate harm and is personified.

Question 14

“Knive us”

Answer 14

Violent imagery.

Question 15

“Night is silent”

Answer 15

Silence creates psychological suffering for the men waiting for something to happen.

Question 16

“Entries whisper, curious, nervous”

Answer 16

Weather creates tension and suspense.

Question 17

“But nothing happens”

Answer 17

Repeated phrase.

Conflict of waiting for something to happen but

Question 18

“Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire”

Answer 18

Wind is personified as the enemy causing conflict.

Question 19

“Like twitching agonies of men”

Answer 19

Simile to compare movement of wind to suffering of men on barbed wire.
Physical suffering.

Question 20

“Flickering gunnery rumbles”

Answer 20

Onomatopoeia.

Creates the sound of war/conflict.

Question 21

“Like a dull rumour of some other war”

Answer 21

Feeling of pointlessness.

Lack of purpose.

Question 22

“The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow…”

Answer 22

Dawn breaks but nothing changes.

Question 23

“What are we doing here?”

Answer 23

Powerlessness in war.

Rhetorical question.

Question 24

“Dawn missing in the east her melancholy army”

Answer 24

Even the weather of a new day appears miserable.

Question 25

“Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence”

Answer 25

Suddenly have war like activity.

Gunfire intensified by use of sibilance.

Question 26

“Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow”

Answer 26

Personification.

Snow/cold is the real conflict, more terrifying than the sporadic gunfire.

Question 27

“Winds nonchalance”

Answer 27

Weather does not care about their suffering.

Question 28

“Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces”

Answer 28

Alliteration, highlights how weather is the enemy.

Question 29

“We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed”

Answer 29

Trying to shelter from weather.

Disorientated mind drifts to happier times.

Question 30

“Is it that we are dying?”

Answer 30

Think they are on the verge of death.

Question 31

Memories and souls do what?

Answer 31

Escape conflict and travel back home.

Question 32

What poem is this linked to?

Answer 32

The Man he Killed.

Question 33

“We turn back to our dying”

Answer 33

Ambiguous death is imminent.

Dying soldiers around them.

Question 34

“Therefore were born”

Answer 34

See suffering as a reason for living.

Question 35

“For love of God seems dying”

Answer 35

Lost their faith in God.

Conflict is essential to protect home and survive.

Question 36

“Tonight”

Answer 36

Poet covers whole day in the life of solider.

Conflict.

Question 37

“His frost will fasten on this mud and us”

Answer 37

Idea of mud controls them.

Lives are worthless.

Question 38

“Shrivelling many hands, puckering foreheads crisp”

Answer 38

Suffering during conflict without gunfire.

Physical conflict.

Question 39

“The burying party, picks and shovels in the shaking grasp”

Answer 39

To dispose of the dead soldiers shaking. cold, fear, mentally disturbed horror of burying friend.

Question 40

“Half-known face”

Answer 40

Conflict has forever changed the appearance of people they once knew or they don’t know the people they fight alongside.

Question 41

“All their eyes are ice”

Answer 41

Metaphor.
Lack of spirit.
Highlights death.

Question 42

What does the poem end with?

Answer 42

Repeated line.