Exposure

Question 1

Wilfred Owen

Answer 1

Wrote exposure in 1918 from the trenches of ww1 not long he was killed in battle much of his poetry reveals his anger against the war and the waste of life published in 1920

Question 2

Form

Answer 2

The poem’s written in the present tense using the first person plural (e.g. “Our”, “We”, “us”).
This collective voice shows how the experience was shared by soldiers across the war. Each stanza has a regular rhyme scheme (ABBAC), reflecting the monotonous nature of the men’s experience, but the rhymes are often half-rhymes (e.g. “snow” & “renew”). The rhyme scheme offers no comfort or satisfaction - the rhymes are jagged like the reality of the men’s experience and reflect their confusion and fading energy.
Each stanza ends with a half line, leaving a gap which mirrors the lack of activity or hope for the men.

Question 3

Structure

Answer 3

The poem has eight stanzas, but there’s no real progression — the last stanza ends with
the same words as the first one, reflecting the monotony of life in the trenches and the absence of change.

Question 4

Questions.

Answer 4

The poem uses rhetorical questions to ask why the men are exposed to such dreadful
conditions, and whether there’s any point to their suffering.

Question 5

Bleak language

Answer 5

The poem includes lots of bleak imagery to remind the reader of the men’s pain,
the awful weather and the lack of hope for the soldiers. Assonance, onematopoeia and carefully chosen verbs add to the bleak mood and make the descriptions vivid and distressing.

Question 6

Personification

Answer 6

Nature is repeatedly personified, making it seem the real enemy in the war.

Question 7

But nothing happens

Answer 7

The short but Simple half line emphasis their boredom and tension reapested at the end of most Para

Also the final stanza ends the same way it started leading it to the war nothing happening

Question 8

For love of god seems dying

Answer 8

Their loyalty to god is dissaoeraing or gods love for them is dying