Exposure Flashcards
How does Wilfred Owen’s own life relate to the context of the poem?
Originally pursued career in the church but gave up because he felt the church failed to care for those in its locality.
Joined British army 1915
Why was exposure revolutionary?
Before this, war poems focussed on patriotic verse which praised bravery of soldiers + glorified battle (charge of the light brigade)
British attitudes to war 1914 (WW1)
Myth that war was honourable and exciting and for the brave. He wanted to dispose this myth- believed war is pointless.
What is the conflict between
The soldiers and the weather conditions- ironic because they’re at war.
Nature- enemy
Exposure
Exposure to weather conditions, enemy soldiers,
Exposure of the truth for the British public of the reality of war- not glorious, brave and honourable
3 part structure, effect?
Each stanza structures like this:
Blunt and powerful sentence
‘Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us…’
Highly emotive vocabulary choice: heightens tension and builds to climatic moment-
‘Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,’
Stanza ends with anti- climatic
‘but nothing happens’
Owen wants reader to empathise with how he felt: constant tense feeling- something could happen at any second but never does.
Effect of 3 part stanza 8 verse repetition
Reflects the emotional rollercoaster soldiers went through on daily basis: exhaustion.
Rhyme scheme
ABBAC- stays through poem- repetitive and futile situation soldiers are in.
The first 4 lines establish a rhyme pattern only for that to be broken down in the final line reflects the building momentum and anticipation of battle which is never realised.
Backs up the building up tension in the structure of each stanza.
Effect of pararhyme
(Two end of line words contain the same consonant but not the same vowels)
Stanza 1
Knive us…
Silent…
Salient…
Nervous,
Gives the poem permanent sense of being on-edge, incomplete or not quite right.
Perfection and closure in full rhyme is denied in poem like closure in the war is denied for the soldiers.
‘For love of God seems dying.’
People are losing their religious beliefs when exposed to horrors of war.
Causes man to question existence of God or that he doesn’t care.
Or
‘Dying’ verb
Reference to Christ’s death on the cross.
Soldiers are Christ-like characters- sacrificing themselves to save others
Biblical imagery
Sound of gunfire is ‘like a dull rumour of some other war’
Referencing biblical writings concerning the end of the world (Matthew chapter 24 Jesus says when the end of the world is coming ‘you will hear of wars and rumours of wars’.
Situation he’s in feels like the end of the world.
Winds that - us
Winds that knive us
Personification of weather- more dangerous than war.- power of nature.
Mad -
Mad gusts
Personification of weather- more dangerous than war.- power of nature.
Dawn massing in the east her - -
Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army
Oxymoron
Personification of weather- more dangerous than war.- power of nature.
‘Air that - with - ice
Air that shudders with black ice
Personification of weather- more dangerous than war.- power of nature.
Pale flakes with - - - - - - -
Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces
Sibilance/ alliteration
Hissing sound
Personification of weather- more dangerous than war.- power of nature.
Why is the nature personified so much + effect of war and nature combined
Nature is more dangerous than enemy soldiers
The rain ‘attacks once more in ranks’
Not much difference between enemy soldiers and the weather to Owen + comrades.
Sudden - flights of - streak the -
Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence
Sibilance
Hissing sound
Sound of gunshot or shivering soldiers
Sinister/ negative atmosphere that reminds the reader of the constant threat of the environment.
Caesura- effect?
Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires, glozed
With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there;
For hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs;
Shutters and doors, all closed: on us the doors are closed,-
First time in poem
Soldiers thinking back to home and punctuation creates division on each line reflecting the division caused by war between those at home and the present setting for the soldiers.
Ending, structure? Effect?
‘But nothing happens’
Same as poem began (on last line of first stanza)
Repetition: cyclical structure
Shows that nothing has been achieved: they’re slowly dying for nothing.
