exposure Flashcards
what is exposure about
-trauma experienced by soldiers in the trenches
The soldiers are waiting in a trench ● They are scared to rest because they could be attacked at any time ● Nothing eventually happens
● They watch the nature and the trenches which all seem to show signs of suffering
● They can hear fighting in the background
● Dawn only seems to bring more misery and suffering
● The cold is another aggressor and appears to be more of a threat than the enemy soldiers
● The passing of time is marked by snow transitioning into signs of spring
context on wilfred owen
Originally, Owen pursued a career in the church however, he felt that it was hypocritical as it failed in its duty to care for its dependants. He became a soldier and was killed in battle one week before the armistice in 1918. War poetry was a new form at the time as there hadn’t been a major war in more than 100 years. Owen’s inspiration in his writing was drawn greatly from the work of John Keats and Siegfried Sassoon. Sassoon later acted as a mentor to Owen whilst he suffered from shellshock in hospital. At this time, a therapist advised Owen to write about his experiences in his poetry, so his work expresses the true horror of war rather than him internalising it.
significance of the time that the poem was written
The poem was written in 1917 whilst Owen was fighting in the trenches which creates an authentic first person narrative as the poem was written by an actual soldier in the midst of conflict. In contemporary Britain, war was romanticised to the point that it had gained mythical status. This was reflected in most other war poetry at the time which focused on the honour of fighting
structure
unconventional rhyme scheme shows that they are barely coping
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 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
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 left 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.
Owen employs a chaotic structure in his poem to mirror the chaos and panic of war.
Cyclical structure The last line of the first and last stanza is “but nothing happens” which connects the end and beginning of the poem to emphasise the fact that nothing has happened in that time. Anaphora The speaker repeats “but nothing happens” to emphasise the futility of war. The situation remains the same despite their suffering so they aren’t achieving anything.
This leads the speaker to question “what are we doing here”. It is often interpreted that Owens wasn’t objecting to war itself but against unnecessary wars and poor leadership.
Caesura 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. Yett there is a barrier between the two places as they cannot return and must instead stay and fight in the cold.
main idea 1
soldiers are carrying out a moral duty to protect the lives of the innocent back home = highlights the cruelty of the situation
Owen presents the soldiers to be carrying out their moral duty to protect the innocent people at home; the speaker says “for love of God seems dying”. Owen uses a contemporary listener’s association of Christianity with morality to show the soldiers’ selflessness. This can be tied to the idea of Jesus suffering and dying to save humanity. A similar sense of acceptance of death is shown in “we turn back to our dying”.The poem could also be interpreted to show the soldiers losing their love for God. Their faith is “dying” as it is difficult to reconcile the theory of a benevolent God with the reality of conflict. This links to Owen’s short career in the church resulting in his view of it being hypocritical.
sense of juxtaposition= god is omnipotent, everlasting= cannot be overpowered
This religious reference implies that there is a lack of religiously imposed morality remaining in the situation- highlighting the cruelty of it.
main idea 2
everlasting effects of trauma = shell shock
Sibilance is used in “sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence” to position nature as the enemy. The sibilant consonants mirror the sound of gunfire which shows the reader that the snow is the real threat as snowflakes slice through the air in the same way as bullets. This breaks the silence previously described. It appears the battle the soldiers were waiting for is not with the opposition but with nature instead. The snowfall is not the “dull rumour of some other war”, it is an immediate threat. The sinister atmosphere is perpetuated by the serpent like connotations of the sibilance used.
use of sibilance and fricitatives creates a horrific image
increased use of sibilance shows the pace quickening,
assonance mimetic of moaning and pain and suffering
main idea 3
speaking with a collective tone
-lack of individualism,
desperate for a sense of longing together due to the fear
using collective pronouns
owen uses pronouns such as our, we
but not I
-sense of being whole,
sharing his collective suffering and horror of the war
-reflects the sense of injustice he felt that the soldiers faced
-because he is speaking not just for himself but for the entire group of soldiers experiencing the frigid cold as they remain trapped on the battlefield.
For example, when the speaker says “Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us,” he means that it’s not just his own brain that hurts: it’s the brains of his comrades, too; and it’s not just to him that the wind that feels like a knife: it feels that way to the others as well.
By presenting the group of soldiers as a unified whole instead of speaking as an individual, the speaker of the poem emphasizes their communal sense of loyalty to one another as they endure the painful and horrifying exposure to the cold weather.
That sense of community, or comradeship, is important in this otherwise extremely bleak poem. The soldiers, as a group, are questioning why God is allowing them to suffer and die in this way, and the entire poem is about not only hopelessness but also the futility of suffering. Faced with this brutal situation, the speaker clings to the unity of his men and to his own sense of belonging to them by speaking in the plural.
