Exposure Flashcards
Rhyme scheme in ‘Exposure’
The consistency of the rhyme scheme allows the fifth line to stand out, emphasising its message. The consistency of the rhyme scheme shows the monotony of the war, as does the regular stanzas.
Owen builds rich imagery throughout the stanza and then the simple fifth line creates an anti climax. This mirrors the way in which the soldiers must stay constantly alert, yet nothing ever happens. This highlights the futility of war.
Pararhymes in ‘Exposure’
Owen creates an underlying atmosphere of unease through the pararhyme between “winds that knife us” and “curious, nervous”. By only rhyming the consonants, Owen leaves the reader unsatisfied to mirror the soldiers feelings of unease. The reader is ledt anticipating a rhyme in the same way the soldiers are on edge anticipating a battle. This unconventional use of rhyming creates the impression that the poem is only just being kept together just like the soldiers are only just coping.
Caesura in ‘Exposure’
Owen uses punctuation to separate home from the trenches. The colon used in “slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires” depicts the soldiers to be imagining the warmth of their homes. Yet there is a barrier between the two places as they cannot return and must instead stay and fight in the cold.
Cyclical structure in ‘exposure’
The last line of the first and last stanza is “but nothing happens” whcih connects the end and beginning of the poem to emphasise the fact that nothing has happened in that time.
How the theme of boredom presented in Exposure
Passage of time is represented by the description of the season changing. ‘Snow-dazed’ to ‘sun-dosed’.
Shows how long they are in the trenches for just waiting
How the theme of soldiers being forgotten presented in Exposure
Conveys desondency felt by soldier who believe they are being forgotten.
Metaphor ‘on us the doors are closed’ implies that as those at home in safety carry on as normal, forgot about soldiers dying for them. Military soldiers as dispensable by depicting soldiers as indistinguishable from the mud in ‘this frostwill fasten on this mud and us’
How the theme of suffering presented in Exposure
Description of the environment as he would describe an individual in a great deal of pain. He negatively personifies the wind ‘mad gusts tugging on the wires like twitching agonies’ and wire referred to as ‘brambles’
How the theme of fear presented in Exposure
Unable to sleep due to their fear driven constant state of alertness. Scared to sleep even though ‘nothing happens’.
What is the quote which uses sibilance to position nature as the enemy as it should be bullets but is the snowflakes slicing through the air. Also sinister atmosphere as serpent like connotations?
‘sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence’
Wha tis the quote which uses personification of the whether to describe the wheather as the real enemy. Also juxtaposes female nature figure with army?
‘dawn massing in the east her melancholy army’
What quotes use metaphors showing how the soldoers feel forgotten and are dispensible to die?
‘On us the doors are closed’
‘this frost will fasten on this mud and us’
