Exposure

Question 1

“Our brains ache,”

Answer 1

Shared painful experience

Question 2

“merciless iced east winds that knive us,”

Answer 2

Nature is personify and seems to be attacking them

Question 3

Ellipses…

Answer 3

Hint that they’re waiting for something to happen and it never does

Question 4

“Confuse,” “Worried,” “Curious,” “Nervous,”

Answer 4

Overwhelming amount of different emotions

Question 5

“ like twitching agonies of men among its brambles,”

Answer 5

The brambles of the barbed wire remind us of the pain caused by nature

Question 6

“But nothing happens,”

Answer 6

Short simple half line emphasises their boredom and tension

Question 7

“ flickering gunnery rumbles,”

Answer 7

Assonance and onomatopoeia create a vivid aural description

Question 8

“ like a dull, rumour of some other war,”

Answer 8

Absence of war suggests nature is the main enemy

Question 9

“What are we doing here?”

Answer 9

Rhetorical question emphasises the futility

Question 10

“ the poignant misery of dawn begins to grow,”

Answer 10

Shows how pointless and depressing war is

Question 11

“ dawn massing in the east her melancholy army,”

Answer 11

Dawn is personified using the language of battle normally Dawn brings hope but not here.

Question 12

“Ranks of shivering ranks,”

Answer 12

The description of Dawn approach where is the soldiers in the trenches. Ranks gives connotations of war

Question 13

“ sudden successive flights of bullet streak the silence,”

Answer 13

Sibilance mimics the whistling sound of bullets flying and with this being the only line involving war this emphasises the absence of warfare. Concrete imagery.

Question 14

“Flowing flakes that flock,”

Answer 14

Alliteration emphasises the relentlessness of the snow

Question 15

“Black with snow,”

Answer 15

Snow is normally white(symbolising purity) but here it’s black (symbolising evil or death)

Question 16

“ Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces,”

Answer 16

The snowflakes are personified their maliciously seeking the men’s faces

Question 17

“ slowly our ghosts drag Home,”

Answer 17

“oh” sounds make the journey sound painful and slow

Question 18

“ for love of God seems dying,”

Answer 18

Could mean that their love of God is disappearing all that they feel God’s love for them is dying

Question 19

“ shrivelling many hands puckering forehead crisp,”

Answer 19

Vivid image of what exposure to the cold does to their bodies

Question 20

“All their eyes are ice,”

Answer 20

Metaphor refers to the eyes of the living dead man it’s a vivid description of how they’ve been overpowered by nature hence that the living men are no longer able to feel any emotion

Question 21

Each stanza has the same regular rhyme scheme

Answer 21

Reflects the monotonous nature of the men’s experience

Question 22

The rhymes are often half rhymes

Answer 22

Offers no comfort or satisfaction as the rhymes are jagged like the reality of the men’s experience and reflect their confusion and fading energy

Question 23

Each stanza ends with a half line

Answer 23

Mirrors the lack of activity or hope of the men

Question 24

Nature is constantly personified

Answer 24

Makes nature seem the real enemy of war

Question 25

Bleak and negative language linking to suffering

Answer 25

Exposes the helplessness and suffering of the soldiers.

Question 26

“Wearied,” “Ache”

Answer 26

Highlights for fatigue and tension of soldiers despite lack of achievement

Question 27

“What are we doing here?”

Answer 27

Rhetorical questions the soldiers questioned the purpose of the suffering

Question 28

Personifies nature

Answer 28

To be relentless, cruel insistent enemy. Desperate to reach the soldiers. Images relating to inevitability of death or emotional death. Give sense of hopelessness.

Question 29

“But nothing happens,”

Answer 29

The repetition showed futile and nothing gained despite suffering and loss of the soldiers. Compounded by it being the final line, nothing will ever gained