Exposure

Question 1

What is the poem about?

Answer 1

Soldiers in trenches of WW1 are awake at night, afraid of an enemy attack.
However, nature is their main enemy.
The men imagine returning home, but the doors are closed to them.
They return to thinking about their deaths in the icy, bleak trenches

Question 2

Who wrote the poem?

Answer 2

Wilfred Owen

Question 3

What themes are present in Exposure?

Answer 3

Power of Nature, Effects and Reality of Conflict and Loss and Absence.

Question 4

What could you analyse in the quote ‘Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us…’?

Answer 4

• ‘Our’- Collective pronoun- everyone is affected.
• ‘merciless iced east winds’- Sibilance- harshness of war.
• ‘knive us’- Personification and aggressive verb
• ellipsis- Hint that they are waiting for something to happen but it never does.

Question 5

What could you say about the structure of Exposure?

Answer 5

• 14 syllable lines are long to show the length of war

- Regular stanza length and ABABC rhyme shows the regular occurrence of war and set structure like a military op.

Question 6

What could you analyse in the quote ‘All there eyes are ice, but nothing happens’?

Answer 6

• ‘All’- everyone is effected
• ‘are ice’-metaphor- very cold, unrecognisable and wanted to ‘expose’ the reality of war.
• ‘But nothing happens’- Still alive, same as the end of the first stanza, shows that nothing has changed or happening.

Question 7

What is the Context of Exposure?

Answer 7

Owen was a soldier who fought in WW1. Lived through the coldest winter ever.
Wanted to ‘expose’ the reality of war.