Exposure by Wilfred Owen Flashcards
The poem in a nutshell….
This poem centres on a group of British soldiers as they wait in the trenches and battlefields for war. The main conflict here is between the soldiers and the biting winter weather.
Owen highlights the extreme conditions these men were subjected to in WW1. This is not the type of danger and suffering people expected the British soldiers to be dying of. Owen wanted to expose the realities of life for (and the fates of) soldiers in WW1.
Context
Wilfred Owen was born in 1893 and died in 1918, just one week before the end of WW1.
He joined the war in October 1915, but, after some traumatic events on the battlefield, he was sent to
hospital to be treated for shell-shock.
He wrote poetry throughout his time in the war and they are famous for their vivid imagery and shocking
truths about the reality of war.
‘Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds
that knive us…’
The wind is personified as a murderer. The winds have no mercy and the soldiers feel as if they are being stabbed with cold. This is in contrast to being stabbed with real bayonets in a real battle.
Their brains ache with both cold and, possibly, the extreme fatigue, loneliness and despair that they all felt.
‘Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the
silence. Less deadly than the air that shudders
black with snow’
The alliterative ‘s’ sounds (sibilance) mimic the sound of the bullets streaking through the air. Could also be sharp intakes of breath of men in shock. Could also mimic the sound of shivering as these men are freezing to death.
The bullets are described as ‘less deadly’ than the snow. People at home in Britain would have been shocked to hear that their brave soldiers were being killed by harsh conditions rather than combat. The image of the air ‘shuddering black’ with snow
contrasts with joyful images of Christmas back home in England.
‘The burying-party, picks and shovels in shaking
grasp, Pause over halfknown faces’
The reader is presented with the image of these soldiers burying their own men. The ‘shaking grasp’ could be because of the cold. It could also be the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (or
‘shell-shock’).
The ‘half-known’ faces could refer to the fact that these men didn’t know each other very well. Or maybe they no longer recognise each other…
Aspects of Power or Conflict
This poem highlights the reality of conflicts and the deaths that are often a result. It focuses more on the
conflict of the soldiers and the harsh conditions they faced in WW1 rather than any actual battles. It seeks to
dismiss the glamorisation of patriotism and expose the truths of WW1.
Poems that can be linked
Bayonet Charge
Charge of the Light Brigade
