Exposure

Question 1

Who wrote the poem?

Answer 1

Wilfred Owen

Question 2

Poems to compare

Answer 2

Lack of hope - London

Realities of war - Remians, Charge of the Light briagade

Question 3

Feelings and Attitudes

Answer 3

Pain - Phycical or emotional plain, fatigue, homesick

Boardon and Frustration - they are left to comptemplate their own death

Hopelessness - hopeless to fight the power of nature, nothing they can do to change their situation.

Question 4

What does the cyclical structure show?

Answer 4

The next day will be the same, no change leading to hopelessness

This is emphasised by the fact that the peom is in present tense

Question 5

Form and Structure?

Answer 5

Present tense (first person plural)(us...) - this collective voice shows a universal experience of a soldier
Cyclical structure

Each stanza has a regular rhyme scheem (A,B,B,A,C) reflecting the repetetive natire of war. Rhymes are usually half rhymes showing that there is no confort in the comfort of satisafsction
The rhymes could also reflect the confused or fatigued nature of the men’s experiences

Each stanza ends in a half line which leaves an empty space which could represent a lack of hope or activity if the men

Fist and last stanza are set at night ending with “nothing happens” creating a cyclical strutre

Question 6

Describe the poet?

Answer 6

Fought valientky in WW1 winning awards for bravory

He wrote the poem in the trenches and most of his poetry shows his anger at war and the waste of life it causes

Question 7

What does the title infer?

Answer 7

Negative connetations

Question 8

Showing it was a painfull experience for all

Answer 8

“Our brains ache”

Start of the poem

Question 9

Personification of the wind?

Explain

Answer 9

“merciless iced east winds that knife
us…”

Elipsis emphasises that they are waiting for somethingbut that it never happens

Question 10

Christmas carrol

Answer 10

“night is silent”

Justoposition

Question 11

Different emottions

Answer 11

First stanza ?

“confuse”
“Worried”(start of a line)”curious, nervous”

Question 12

Confusion of tenses highlights their fatigue

Answer 12

“Watching, we hear”

Question 13

Showing us natures ability to cause pain

Answer 13

“mad gusts tugging on the wire

Like twitching agonies”

Question 14

Suggetsing that they arn’t part of the actual war

Answer 14

“like a dull rumour of some other war”

Question 15

Time phrase

Explain

Answer 15

“Misory of dawn”

Dawn normaly is positive but for them it is another day of exposure

Question 16

Personofication of dawn with an army

Explain

Answer 16

“Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army
Attacks”

Personifided using the semantic field of military

Melancholy means deppressing, dark and misrable

Question 17

How is dawn atatcking

Explain the colour

Answer 17

“Ranks of shivering ranks of grey”

Grey shows a lack of hope and how everything on the battle field is dead also the German unoforms were grey

Question 18

Rhetorical question at the end of stanza 2

Answer 18

“What are we doing her”

He is questoning the point of war

Question 19

End of stanza 1,3,4,8

Explain

Answer 19

“But nothing happens”

Short simple half line emphasises bordom and tention (war is not all action)

This is highlighted by the repetition.

The poem ends on this line showing how even death can’t stop this cycle

Question 20

Change of pace at the start of stanza 4

Explain

Answer 20

“Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence”

Sibilance chages the pace of the poem and mimics the sounds of bullets flying

Question 21

Snow is shown as desth

Answer 21

“Black with snow”

Normally anow is white (purity)
here it is black (death)

Question 22

Snow flakes

Find better clue

Answer 22

“Flowing flakes that flock”

Repetition of fh sound emphasises the relentlessness of the weather

Question 23

Repetition of “f” sound agressive

Answer 23

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

Question 24

End of stanza 5

Answer 24

“Is it that we are dying?”

Another question possible answering the first

Question 25

Assonance of the elongated vowel sounds makes the imagined joirney seem painful and slow

Answer 25

“Slowly our ghosts drag home:…”

Question 26

They go back to doing something

Answer 26

“We turn back to our dying.”

End stop shows that there is nothing else to do

Question 27

Showing a cyclial structure?

Answer 27

“Tonight”

Question 28

Link between humans and nature!

Answer 28

“mud and us”

Suggest they are no more important than mud

Maybe if they die they will become mud

Question 29

Could be someone who has been disfigured pr showing the horrors of war

Answer 29

“half-known faces”

He doesn’ want to know anyone deep down in case they die

Could be a disfigured face

Question 30

What does the rhyme sceem represent?

Answer 30

ABBAC

This shows a build up in tention with the ABBA but the last line stops the tention with the C as nothign happens