Exposure Flashcards
Who wrote Exposure?
Wilfred Owen
What is the opening line, which implies that it is about a shared experience?
“Our brains ache”
What quotation, in stanza one, shows that nature is personified and shown to be attacking the soldiers?
“in the merciless iced east winds that knive us”
What type of punctuation shows that the soldiers are waiting for something to happen - but it never does?
ellipses …
What emotions are used to show the reason why their brains hurt?
“confuse/worried/curious/nervous”
What short, simple half line emphasises boredom and tension and is repeated throughout the poem?
“But nothing happens”
What quotation uses “brambles” of the barbed wire to remind us of the pain caused by nature?
“like twitching agonies of men among its brambles”
What quotation uses assonance and onomatopoeia to create a vivid aural description of the battle field?
“flickering gunnery rumbles”
What quotation is a biblical reference to Mathew 24:6, where Jesus foretells the end of the world?
“like a dull rumour of some other war”
What rhetorical question asks what the point of it all is?
“what are we doing here”
What quotation shows that dawn is personified and that it normally brings hope, however not in this case?
“dawn massing in the east her melancholy army”
What quotation is a description of dawn approaching which mirrors the soldiers in the trenches?
“ranks on shivering ranks of grey”
What does the colour “grey” have connotations of?
no colour - the battlefield is cold and lifeless. Grey was the colour of the Germans uniforms so this aligns nature with the enemy
What quotation uses sibilance to mimic the whistling sound of bullets flying?
“sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence”
What does the quotation “black with snow” suggest?
That snow is normally white and symbolises purity but here it is black which symbolises death and evil
