Poem - Exposure Flashcards
This poem has a …. structure
Cyclical
What are the 2 things the poems title refer to?
Exposure to the cold
Exposure of the myth that fighting in the war was exciting and glamorous
Why does Wilfred Owen use para-rhymes
To show imperfectness of war
All their eyes are ice
Stanza 8: Nobody is warm and welcoming, almost dead
Caesurae is used in the 2nd stanza
2nd stanza is talking about home. Caesurae shows division war causes when returning
Why is “but nothing happens” the C in each stanza?
Stands out
Breaking of rhyme reflects the war building in momentum which isn’t realised
Like a dull rumour of some other war
Stanza 2: The war doesn’t seem real
Structure of each stanza mirrors the soldiers life in war
Blunt sentence
Emotive language
Anti-climatic “but nothing happens”
Why did Wilfred Owen leave the church?
Thought church didn’t help people
We watch them [snowflakes] wandering
Stanza 4: wandering = aimless. Parallelism with aimless war
A quote that shows the pain felt by the soldiers
Winds that knive us
What structure creates a sombre mood in the poem?
Rhymes and para-rhymes give a tight shape to the stanzas.
We watch them [snowflakes]
Stanza 4: instead of fighting they watch the snowflakes. They don’t want to fight.
A quote that shows how windy it was, but also the hatred of the enemy in the east (Germany)
Iced east winds
Rhyme scheme
A B B A C
[The Snowflakes] renew
Stanza 4: the snowflakes can be renewed, unlike the lives lost during the fighting. This suggests nature is against war
An adjective that highlights the tedium of the war
Silence
What is “but nothing happens”
Anticlimax
Slowly our ghosts drag home
Stanza 6: Like they are forced to go home. A part of them have died out there and only their ghosts remain.
God seems dying
Stanza 7: He is starting to question his faith.
poignant misery of dawn
Stanza 3: Normally, dawn is a happy event, ‘singing birds’, but war makes it miserable. Also dawn is cyclical and repetitive, it always happens, like the war.
But nothing happens
Stanza 1: “But nothing happens” is referring to the war This is parallelism. However, throughout the poem, he suggests that the weather is always changing. This adds another difference between the war and nature.
What does sibilance in sudden successive shots of bullets do?
Creates sound of machine gun
Sounds like shivering soldiers
What did Wilfred Owen think war was?
Pointless
Another quote that shows the loss of faith from the soldiers
We believe not
Flowing flakes that flock
Stanza 4: Alliteration
A quote that shows how the war is driving the soldiers insane
Mad gusts
Sudden successive flights of bullets
Stanza 4: Sibilence
War lasts, rain soaks and clouds sag stormy
Stanza 3: This tricolon is about the weather and war that lasts. Weather is always happening, like this war.
What is Caesurae?
Punctuation in the middle of a line of poetry
Dull rumour of some other war
Biblical, said in matthew
Our brains ache
Stanza 1: Talking about the mental strain of war
[the snowflakes] come feeling for our face
Stanza 5: Nature can walk all over them, the soldiers are very weak comparably. Another suggestion that nature is against war.
Mice rejoice: the house is theirs; Shutters and doors, all closed: on us the doors are closed.
Stanza 7: people have become more primitive than mice because of participation in the war.
Silence, sentries, whisper
Stanza 1: Sibilence
Air that shudders
Stanza 4: Personification
The wind’s nonchalance
Stanza 4: nonchalance means uncaring. Could be about how the soldiers have a nonchalant attitude to the war
