Exposure Flashcards
Who wrote the poem?
Wilfred Owen
Context, purpose and meaning
-Speaker describes war as a battle against the weather and conditions.
- Imagery of cold and warm reflect the delusional mind of a man dying from hypothermia.
- Owen wanted to draw attention to the suffering, monotony and futility of war.
Context
-Written in 1917 before Owen
went on to win the Military
Cross for bravery, and was then
killed in battle in 1918: the
poem has authenticity as it is
written by an actual soldier.
-
‘Our brains…’
‘Our brains ache’ physical (cold) suffering and mental (PTSD or shell shock) suffering. -Semantic field of weather: weather is the
enemy.
‘the merciless…east…that knive us’
“the merciless iced east winds that knive us…” – personification (cruel and murderous wind); sibilance (cutting/slicing sound of wind); ellipsis (never-ending).
Repetition of pronouns ‘we’ and ‘our’ – conveys?
Repetition of pronouns ‘we’ and ‘our’ – conveys togetherness and collective suffering of soldiers.
‘mad gusts..’
‘mad gusts tugging on the wire’ –
personification
‘Low, dropping flares…’
‘Low, dropping flares confuse
our memory of the salient.’
‘worried by…’
‘worried by silence’
‘the flickering…’
‘The flickering gunnery
rumbles.’
‘The poignant misery…’
‘The poignant misery of dawn
begins to grow.’
‘Sudden successive flights..’
‘Sudden successive flights of
bullets streak the silence.’
‘Slowly our ghosts…’
‘Slowly our ghosts drag home.’
