2️⃣ Exposure Flashcards
Who was it written by?
Wilfred Owen
When is this poem based?
WW1
When and where was it written?
1917
In the trenches
Our brains ache
Metaphor and collective pronoun shows collective suffering of soldiers
In the merciless iced east winds that knive us
Personification of wind suggests the weather is the enemy
Hyperbole exaggerates the cold
Sibilance imitates the wind and shivering cold
Silent…
Salient…
Pararhyme and ellipses slows pace emblematic of long sleepless night
Wrapped up in thoughts and anticipation vs. Then reality
Worried by the silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,
But nothing happens
Expectation
Sibilants imitates whispers and anticipation of an attack
Long syntax and ellipses, pararhyme and long lines slows pace and imitates long sleepless night
Mad gust tugging on the wire
Personification of wind suggests it’s teasing them
Like twitching agonies of men among its Brambles
Simile
Part of the semantic field of nature and weather
Imagery suggest the soldiers are trapped through metaphor
What are we doing here?
Rhetorical question questions the morality of war
We only know that war lasts, rain soaks and clouds sag stormy
Sibilance imitates the weather
We only know that war lasts, rain soaks and clouds sag stormy
Sibilance imitates the weather
Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army
Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of grey
Incessant attack of weather, which is the true enemy shown through pathetic fallacy
But nothing happens.
Anticlimactic refrain throughout the poem which highlights the futility of war and questions wars morality.
Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence
Sibilance imitates bullets
Sudden is unexpected
