Exposure Flashcards
Quotes p.1.
“Our brains ache”
“merciless iced east winds that knive us…”
“night is silent…”
“the salient…”
“sentries whisper, curious, nervous”
Quotes p.2.
“mad gusts tugging on the wire”
“Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles”
“flickering gunnery rumbles”
“like a dull rumour of some other war”
“What are we doing here?”
Quotes p.3.
“poignant misery of dawn”
“We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy”
“Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence”
“air that shudders black with snow”
“flowing flakes” “wandering” up and down “wind’s nonchalance”
Quotes p.4.
“We cringe in holes, back in forgotten dreams”
“Deep into grassier ditches”
“So we drowse, sun-dozed, Littered with blossoms”
“Is it that we are dying?”
“Slowly our ghosts drag home”
“glozed With crusted dark-red jewels”
“innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs”
“on us the doors are closed”
Quotes p.5.
“love of God seems dying”
“this frost will fasten on this mud and us”
“burying-party, picks and shovels in shaking gasp”
“half-known faces”
“All their eyes are ice”
STRUCTURE
- 8 stanzas but there’s no real progression
- Last stanza ends with same words as first one, reflecting the monotony of life in the trenches and the absence of change
FORM
- Present tense using the first person plural (“Our”, “We”, “us”)
- Collective voice shows of exp was shared by soldiers
- Each stanza has a regular rhyme scheme (ABBAC), reflecting monotonous nature of men’s exp
- Often half rhymes (e.g. “snow” and “renew”)
- Rhyme scheme offers no comfort or satisfaction; rhymes are jagged like reality of the men’s exp and reflect their confusion and fading energy
- Each stanza ends with a half line, leaving a gap that mirrors lack of activity or hope for men
