In Depth Exposure

Question 1

Content and meaning

Answer 1

Speaker describes war as battle against weather

Imagery of cold and warm reflect delusion in hypothermia

Owen wanted to draw attention to suffering, monotony and futility of war

Question 2

Language

Answer 2

Our brains ache: physical suffering of cold and mental (PTSD)

Semantic field of weather: is enemy

The merciless iced east winds that knife us…: personification (cruel and murderous) sibilance (cutting slicing of wind) ellipsis (never ending)

Repetition of pronouns ‘we’ and ‘our’: conveys togetherness and collective suffering

Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces: fricative and personified shows merciless weather

Question 3

Structure

Answer 3

Contrast of cold< warm < cold imagery conveys suffering < delusion < death= hypothermia

But nothing happens: repetition creates circular structure- never ending suffering

Rhyme ABBA and hexameter gives poem structure and emphasis of monotony

Pararhyme’s nervous and knife us only barely hold poem together like men