Poem - Exposure

Question 1

This poem has a …. structure

Answer 1

Cyclical

Question 2

What are the 2 things the poems title refer to?

Answer 2

Exposure to the cold

Exposure of the myth that fighting in the war was exciting and glamorous

Question 3

Why does Wilfred Owen use para-rhymes

Answer 3

To show imperfectness of war

Question 4

All their eyes are ice

Answer 4

Stanza 8: Nobody is warm and welcoming, almost dead

Question 5

Caesurae is used in the 2nd stanza

Answer 5

2nd stanza is talking about home. Caesurae shows division war causes when returning

Question 6

Why is “but nothing happens” the C in each stanza?

Answer 6

Stands out

Breaking of rhyme reflects the war building in momentum which isn’t realised

Question 7

Like a dull rumour of some other war

Answer 7

Stanza 2: The war doesn’t seem real

Question 8

Structure of each stanza mirrors the soldiers life in war

Answer 8

Blunt sentence
Emotive language
Anti-climatic “but nothing happens”

Question 9

Why did Wilfred Owen leave the church?

Answer 9

Thought church didn’t help people

Question 10

We watch them [snowflakes] wandering

Answer 10

Stanza 4: wandering = aimless. Parallelism with aimless war

Question 11

A quote that shows the pain felt by the soldiers

Answer 11

Winds that knive us

Question 12

What structure creates a sombre mood in the poem?

Answer 12

Rhymes and para-rhymes give a tight shape to the stanzas.

Question 13

We watch them [snowflakes]

Answer 13

Stanza 4: instead of fighting they watch the snowflakes. They don’t want to fight.

Question 14

A quote that shows how windy it was, but also the hatred of the enemy in the east (Germany)

Answer 14

Iced east winds

Question 15

Rhyme scheme

Answer 15

A
B
B
A
C

Question 16

[The Snowflakes] renew

Answer 16

Stanza 4: the snowflakes can be renewed, unlike the lives lost during the fighting. This suggests nature is against war

Question 17

An adjective that highlights the tedium of the war

Answer 17

Silence

Question 18

What is “but nothing happens”

Answer 18

Anticlimax

Question 19

Slowly our ghosts drag home

Answer 19

Stanza 6: Like they are forced to go home. A part of them have died out there and only their ghosts remain.

Question 20

God seems dying

Answer 20

Stanza 7: He is starting to question his faith.

Question 21

poignant misery of dawn

Answer 21

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.

Question 22

But nothing happens

Answer 22

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.

Question 23

What does sibilance in sudden successive shots of bullets do?

Answer 23

Creates sound of machine gun

Sounds like shivering soldiers

Question 24

What did Wilfred Owen think war was?

Answer 24

Pointless

Question 25

Another quote that shows the loss of faith from the soldiers

Answer 25

We believe not

Question 26

Flowing flakes that flock

Answer 26

Stanza 4: Alliteration

Question 27

A quote that shows how the war is driving the soldiers insane

Answer 27

Mad gusts

Question 28

Sudden successive flights of bullets

Answer 28

Stanza 4: Sibilence

Question 29

War lasts, rain soaks and clouds sag stormy

Answer 29

Stanza 3: This tricolon is about the weather and war that lasts. Weather is always happening, like this war.

Question 30

What is Caesurae?

Answer 30

Punctuation in the middle of a line of poetry

Question 31

Dull rumour of some other war

Answer 31

Biblical, said in matthew

Question 32

Our brains ache

Answer 32

Stanza 1: Talking about the mental strain of war

Question 33

[the snowflakes] come feeling for our face

Answer 33

Stanza 5: Nature can walk all over them, the soldiers are very weak comparably. Another suggestion that nature is against war.

Question 34

Mice rejoice: the house is theirs; Shutters and doors, all closed: on us the doors are closed.

Answer 34

Stanza 7: people have become more primitive than mice because of participation in the war.

Question 35

Silence, sentries, whisper

Answer 35

Stanza 1: Sibilence

Question 36

Air that shudders

Answer 36

Stanza 4: Personification

Question 37

The wind’s nonchalance

Answer 37

Stanza 4: nonchalance means uncaring. Could be about how the soldiers have a nonchalant attitude to the war