exposure Flashcards
Brief plot summary
The soldiers endure freezing, sleepless nights in the trenches, battered by wind, snow, and frost. They are exposed not only to the physical torment of the cold but also to the psychological horror of war—waiting endlessly for battle, only to face numbness and despair. Nature itself seems hostile. The men grow weary, questioning their purpose, and some hallucinate or resign themselves to death. The poem ends with the grim image of buried soldiers, their corpses left in the snow, while the war continues indifferently.
Context
Wilfred Owen wrote “Exposure” in 1917, during World War I, while serving as a British soldier on the Western Front. The poem reflects his first-hand experiences of the harsh conditions in the trenches, particularly during winter. Owen sought to expose the brutal realities of war, countering the patriotic propaganda that glorified battle. The poem captures the mental toll of war: exhaustion, despair, and the numbing wait for death, foreshadowing later understandings of shell shock (PTSD).
Form and Structure
8 Five-line stanzas (quintains) with an ABBAC rhyme scheme but with no progression—reflecting the monotonous nature of the men’s experience. The last stanza ends with the words of the first one, reflecting the monotony.
The fifth line often breaks the pattern (e.g., “But nothing happens”), creating anticlimax offering no comfort or satisfaction- the rhymes are jagged like the reality of the men’s experience and reflect their confusion and fading energy .
Half-rhymes (pararhymes):
E.g., “nervous / knife us,” “silent / salient”—unresolved sounds reflect soldiers’ unresolved fate.
First-person plural (“we”): Collective voice emphasizes shared suffering.
Language
Personification: Nature as the Enemy
Owen personifies weather and time to make them active tormentors, worse than human foes
Bleak Language: Sensory Horror
Owen’s diction immerses the reader in the unrelenting misery of the trenches
“Our brains ache in the merciless iced east winds that knive us…”
Personification: The wind is “merciless” and “knive[s] us,” portraying nature as a deliberate killer.
Sibilance: The “s” sounds in “merciless iced east winds” mimic the hissing of wind or blades.
Theme: Power of nature vs. man.
Effect: The soldiers’ suffering is relentless; even the air is weaponized.
“But nothing happens.” (Repeated 4x)
“But nothing happens.” (Repeated 4x)
Structure/Techniques:
Refrain: The repetition emphasizes boredom and anticlimax.
Cyclical structure: Mirrors the endless waiting in trenches.
Theme: Pointlessness of war.
Effect: War is stripped of action or glory—just stagnant suffering.
All their eyes are ice.”
Metaphor: Soldiers are dehumanized, frozen emotionally and physically.
Short, stark sentence: Highlights detachment.
Theme: Dehumanization.
Effect: War reduces men to unfeeling objects.
“Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces.”
Personification: Snowflakes “feel” like invading enemies.
Consonance: Repetition of “f” sounds mimics the creeping cold.
Theme: Man vs Nature
Effect: The cold is predatory, more insidious than bullets.
“Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army / Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of grey.”
Personification + Military imagery: Dawn is a general leading an “army” of cold.
Color symbolism: “Grey” conveys despair (no vibrant dawn).
Theme: Man vs Nature
Effect: Even hope (dawn) becomes a weapon.
“Slowly, our ghosts drag home.”
Metaphor: Soldiers are already dead inside.
Assonance of long ‘oh’ sounds: Mirrors exhaustion.
Theme: Psychological
Effect: War leaves survivors hollow, unfit for home.
“What are we doing here?”
Rhetorical question: No answer exists—war’s purpose is lost.
Effect: Soldiers question their sacrifice, inviting reader reflection.
“Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence”
Sibilance: The repetition of soft “s” sounds (“sudden successive flights… streak the silence”) mimics the hissing of bullets cutting through the air, creating an auditory sense of danger.
The line juxtaposes noise and silence: Bullets “streak the silence,” emphasizing how war disrupts the eerie calm of the trenches.
Comparisons
“Exposure” vs. “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (Tennyson)
Similarities:
Both depict soldiers in battle from a collective suffering standpoint.
Differences:
“Exposure”:
Anti-heroic tone (“Our brains ache”).
Critiques leadership indifference.
Nature kills (“frost will fasten”).
“Charge of the Light Brigade”:
Heroic tone (“Honour the Light Brigade!”).
Ignores leadership flaws.
Enemy kills (“Cannon to right of them”).
- “Exposure” vs. “Bayonet Charge” (Ted Hughes)
Similarities:
Explore fear and disorientation in war.
Differences:
“Exposure”:
Collective suffering (“we”).
Passive waiting (“Slowly our ghosts drag home”).
“Bayonet Charge”:
Individual panic (“he”).
Active terror (“bullets smacking the belly”). - “Exposure” vs. “Storm on the Island” (Seamus Heaney)
Similarities:
Nature’s power vs. human vulnerability.
Differences:
“Exposure”:
Nature as malevolent (“winds that knive us”).
War context (soldiers vs. weather).
“Storm on the Island”:
Nature as neutral (“spits like a tame cat”).
Domestic context (civilians vs. storm). - “Exposure” vs. “Remains” (Simon Armitage)
Similarities:
Psychological trauma of war.
Differences:
“Exposure”:
Collective numbness (“All their eyes are ice”).
Slow decay (“Slowly our ghosts drag home”).
“Remains”:
Individual guilt (“his bloody life in my bloody hands”).
Sudden violence (PTSD flashbacks).
Theme of Effect and Reality of conflict
Wilfred Owen’s Exposure strips war of any glory, exposing its true nature as a relentless battle against nature and psychological torment. The poem’s repetitive structure (“But nothing happens”) and vivid sensory imagery (“merciless iced east winds that knive us”) emphasize the soldiers’ stagnant suffering, trapped in freezing trenches where the real enemy is not opposing forces but the indifferent brutality of the elements. Owen’s use of paradox (“Our brains ache in the merciless iced east winds”) and personification (“the flickering gunnery rumbles”) blurs the line between human conflict and natural forces, suggesting war’s futility. The half-rhyme scheme (e.g., “nervous”/”knive us”) creates dissonance, mirroring the soldiers’ fractured mental state. Unlike traditional war poetry that focuses on battle, Exposure reveals the gnawing reality of war—endless waiting, numbing cold, and the creeping fear of being forgotten (“All their eyes are ice”). Owen, writing from firsthand WWI experience, underscores how war’s greatest violence lies in its dehumanizing monotony and the erasure of individual significance in the face of impersonal destruction.
Theme of Nature
Owen portrays nature as war’s most brutal adversary, weaponizing the elements against soldiers already broken by conflict. The personified wind (“merciless iced east winds that knive us”) becomes a sadistic foe, its sibilant “s” sounds mimicking the relentless stabbing of cold. Nature’s indifference is underscored through paradox (“the poignant misery of dawn begins to grow”), where the beauty of daybreak only intensifies their suffering. The repeated half-rhymes (“snow”/”now”) create dissonance, mirroring how nature’s cycles—unlike war—continue uncaring. Even the gunnery is reduced to natural imagery (“the dull rumour of some other war”), suggesting human conflict is insignificant against nature’s eternal power. Unlike Romantic depictions of nature as sublime, Owen’s landscape is actively hostile—its “frost” and “snow-dazed” fields erasing soldiers’ identities, burying them in anonymity. The final image of “buried” men becoming one with the frozen earth (“All their eyes are ice”) completes nature’s victory: not just killing soldiers, but absorbing them into its indifferent cycle.
