exposure

Question 1

author

Answer 1

wilfred owen

Question 2

context

Answer 2

set in winter 1917

he was the leading poetic voice of criticising war and much of owens poetry reveals his anger at the wars waste of life and its horrific conditions

first hand experience

Question 3

merciless iced winds that knive us

Answer 3

knive = violent illustrative language referecing natures barbaric actions through personification

incessant ruthless weather presents the weather as powerful tortuous

Question 4

sibiliance

Answer 4

us silent salient

sibilance mirrors the winds swift movements

the easiness shows soldiers are helpless

Question 5

pale flakes with fingering stealth

Answer 5

owen uses hexameters but often causes unconsitency by adding extra syllables perhaps representing how snowdazed, tornented minds struglle to stay sane

Question 6

but nothings happens (repetition and caesuras)

Answer 6

perhaps theyre already dead (braindead) link to “slowly our ghosts drag home” (assonance to build on the bleak mood)

or

cyclical narrative, interminable cycle of death reflects the monotony of of trench life and abscence of change or progression

Question 7

regular rhyme scheme reflects the monotonous nature of the mens experience nothing changes in rhyme so nothing changes on the front

Answer 7

half rhyme “burn” and “born”

offers a lack of comfort and satisfaction and the rhymes are jagged like the reality of war

Question 8

no real progression

Answer 8

eight stanzas

the last stanza ends with the same words the the first stanza reflecting the inevitable outcome of death and monotony of trench life