Exposure

Question 1

Form and Structure

Answer 1

• ABBAC, first four lines establish a rhyme pattern that is broken down by final line, reflects the building tension and anticlimax
• Pararhyme, permanent sense of being on edge, soldiers are denied the satisfaction of closure
• Cyclical, repetitive nature of war, the situation doesn’t change

Question 2

‘Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires, glozed’

Answer 2

• ‘ghost’ - death is inevitable, the only way home is death or through dreams, links to last stanza that they’re already forgotten
• ‘glimpsing (…) fires’ - metaphor for hope, out of reach
• ‘glozed’ - combines ‘gloss, glow snd glaze,’ sense of shining, dream like imagery
• Assonance of the awkward ‘o’ sound, represents the difficulty to take their minds off the battlefield, constant mental strain

Question 3

‘Fingering stealth come feeling for our faces -
We cringe in holes’

Answer 3

• Personification
• Could suggest the weather is pointing at them, mocking them
• Compared to assassins that stalk them, idea that weather is biggest enemy
• ‘feeling for our faces’ - language often associated with lovers, ironic, weather was the unexpected enemy
• ‘cringed’ - varied verb, animalises them, they are young men in their prime but it makes them seem old and frail

Question 4

‘Half-known faces. All their eyes are ice’

Answer 4

• ‘half known faces’ - sinister image, almost unrecognisable after the toll of the war
• ‘their’ - beginning of stanza he uses ‘us’ now he is distancing himself
• ‘eyes are ice’ - metaphor, the men are numb to the horror of what they’re doing, emotional detachment as they will likely die