Exposure- Wilfred Owen

Question 1

Exposure context:

Answer 1

Wilfred Owen was a WW1 solider
Got injured and wrote poems in hospital
War was majorly glorified at this time, boys wanted to go to war and would lie about their age
1 week before end of war- Owen was shot dead

Question 2

What could the title mean?

Answer 2

Exposure- exposes the true pointlessness of war and exposing the reality of what actually happens

Question 3

“Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that….

Answer 3

Knive us”
‘our’ - sense of unity, collective experience
“mercilessness iced east winds” - personification: highlights that it’s more deadly than the enemy; nature is more powerful
Hyperbole- “Our brains ache”- physical and mental discomfort emphasised- shows how intense the cold is

Question 4

“Watching, we hear the mad gusts….

Answer 4

Tugging on the wire”
repetition of ‘w’ sound shows the quivering sounds and cements soldiers misery- questions purpose of war
‘mad’- personification, nature is wild and unpredictable

Question 5

“Northward, incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles/ Far off like a dull rumour of some other war”

Answer 5

“Rumbles” - onomatopoeia- displays violence of war
colloquial “some other war” - shows carelessness and pointlessness attitude of Owen
“Dull”- lacking interest, war isn’t interesting!
far off, suggesting that the battle they are currently fighting is irrelevant and it doesn’t even feel like it’s part of the one they are fighting

Question 6

“We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and…

Answer 6

Clouds stay stormy”
Pathetic fallacy- sense of depression and gloominess
‘sag stormy’ - adds sinister tone, weather seems threatening and intimidating ( personification )

Question 7

What is the refrain that runs throughout the poem?

Answer 7

“ but nothing happens.”

Question 8

“sudden successive flights of bullets….

Answer 8

Streak the silence”
- sibilance- impersonates the sound of the bullets and the sounds they make

Question 9

“pale flakes of fingering stealth come…..

Answer 9

Feeling for our faces”
pale- connotations of death and lifelessness
“ fingering stealth” personification of the weather shows how the soliders can only sit and practically watch the weather slowly kill them- empathises helplessness

Question 10

“So we drowse….

Answer 10

Sun dozed”
Shows hallucinations and delusions of the soldiers, trying to picture a better life in this moment, trying to be positive?
OTHER TAKE
slowly dying- “ is it that we are dying?” and their spirits are slowly leaving them

Question 11

“ the burying- party, picks and shovels…..

Answer 11

In shaking grasps”
Oxymoron? - implies that Owen would rather continue to suffer in this treacherous weather, sense of futility of war
> ambiguous- many interpretations

Question 12

“Pause over half known faces..

Answer 12

all their eyes are ice. But nothing happens”