Exposure Flashcards
What is the form of the poem?
Present tense using the first person plural.
Collective voice shows that experience is shared.
Each stanza has a regular rhyme scheme (ABBAC) reflecting the monotonous nature of the experience.
What is the structure of the poem?
8 stanzas but there is no progression.
Last stanza ends with the same words as the first one - reflecting the monotony of life in the trenches and the absence of change.
How are questions used in the poem?
Poem uses many rhetorical questions to ask why there are such dreadful conditions and whether there’s any point to the suffering.
How is personification used in the poem?
Nature is repeatedly personified, making it seem like the real enemy in the war.
How is bleak language used in the poem?
Bleak imagery as a reminder of pain. Assonance, onomatopoeia and carefully chosen verbs add to the mood and make the descriptions vivid and distressing.
‘Merciless iced…
…east winds that knive us’
‘Sudden successive…
..flights of bullets streak the silence’
‘What are we…
…doing here?’
‘Is is that…
…we are dying?’
‘But…
…nothing happens.’
‘All their eyes…
…are ice’
