Exposure Flashcards
Why is the title of the poem “exposure?”
- Owen is trying to “expose” what battle was really like and how the propogana around war is fake.
What was trench life like?
- Dirty and dull (according to J . Bennet and Jack Dillon - soldiers who experienced the war.)
- Soldiers felt unsafe and uncomftorble in a place that was supposed to be shelter.
When was exposure written?
Early 1900’s
What different types of weather are described throughout the poem?
- “merciless iced winds that knive us.” - metaphorical: contrast between weather and weapons - suggesting the weather is their greatest enemy (power of weather.)
- snow
- Rain
Why is the phrase “but nothing happens” repeated throughout the poem?
- Shows how they are in an endless cycle of waiting for an attack - on edge// no one is recognising the pain they’re going through!
How is the theme of the soldiers being forgotten about shown throughout the poem?
- They hear bullets and imagine them to be a rumour of another war.
- The doors back at home are closed on them.
- God seems to have forgotten about them - they think so.
What is the main message of this poem?
- Owen is criticing the government for making men go to war (futility.) He is showing the true reality of war (physical and mental conflict) - physical coming from the weather.
How does Owen use structure to show the confusion of the soliders (internal conflict?)
- Elipses: they are looking for an answer confused what they are doing there?
- 2nd stanza: big focus shift - showing how the soldier’s thoughts are flickering too!
- Caesura when they are back home: flickering from images of home life flashing before eyes.
What is the significance of Owen describing the mad gusts of wind “like twithcing agonies of men?”
- Shows the soldiers are hallucinating- unable to stay focussed.
What is the significance of the rhetorical question: “what are we doing here?”
- They don’t know what the aim is of the war.
- Owen is criticing this fact!
Give examples when there is contrast made between physical conflict and the weather’s conflict.
- Dawn’s “melanchony army attacks in ranks of grey.”
- “bullets streak the silence less deadly than the air.”
- Accentuates how Owen’s enemy is the poor conditions not the actually conflict. Futility of war!!
What is the significance of the bullets that “streak the silence?”
- Onompatopeia. Sibilance sounds like bullets they hear.
- Reader imagines the situation they are in - shocked to see that the weather seems worse to them than the bullets.
The snow is described as doing this: “flock, pause and renew” what could this be a metaphor of?
- Shows how soldiers who died in war would just be replaced and would die for absaloutely no reason!!
What do the soldiers hallucinate when the snow hits their faces?
- They hallucinate the snowflakes to be blossoms. Dreaming about the summer.
In what instances is the weather personified and why?
- “her melancholy army”
- “feeling for our face.”
- Shows the power of nature over man!!
What is the significance of the phrase: “the door is closed, on us the doors are closed?”
- Shows how the soldiers have been forgotten about by the government.
What is significance of Owen saying: “we turn back to our dying” after writing about home?
- Shows how the soldiers are drifting in and out of consiousness - they are slowly dying from the weather!!
How is the internal conflict of the soldiers shown when they think about God?
- They are afraid they won’t get into heaven because they don’t believe/ are killing people.
- They have lost everything!!
Why is “But nothing happens” repeated at the end of the poem?
- Ironic use. Shows how government can just replace the soldiers that have died and don’t need to worry about them.
How is imagery of ice developed in the last stanza?
“shrivelling”
“foreheads crisp”// physical difficulty of war.
How is the last stanza structured to show that the death of the soldier is dragging on ?
- No fullstops in lines - deaths are drawn out.
- Full stop is when they die.
What is the lasting image of these soldiers?
“all of their eyes are ice.”
Metaphor
Immortalised in that state - in a disrespectful manner they will just be left to rot.
What is the significance about this poem?
- One of the first poems to show the true nature of war and not mask it all up with propoganda.
What was Wilfred Owen’s experience in WW1 like?
- Officer in WW1
- 1917: Sent to hospital because of shell- shock.
- Met Siegfried Sassoon - who was in the hospital because he wrote a letter to government telling them to stop the war.
- Owen’s poetry was influenced by Sassoon’s idea.
What main types of conflict are in the poem?
- Weather conflict
- Warfare conflict
- Mental conflict
- Conflict between government and soldiers.
