'Exposure' by Owen
- Created by: sp.15
- Created on: 12-12-19 19:36
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- 'Exposure' by Owen
- Ideas about power and conflict
- The men are in the trenches, exposed to the enemy and to nature.
- Nature seems to be more powerful than the enemy: "the icy winds attack them"
- The conflict is violent; the men are "nervous", waiting for the enemy's next attack.
- The solders keep thinking about their death.
- Form
- First person plural: "our", "we" - Owen is speaking for all soldiers exposed in war.
- Regular rhyme scheme shows the monotony (dull regularity) of trench warfare.
- Retain of "...but nothing happens" emphasises misery.
- Repetition of "dying" highlights that death is all around the soldiers.
- Owen uses para-rhymes (rhymes using consonants) for a dull, unpleasant sound.
- Each stanza ends with the anti-climax of a short line: suggest a lack of hope.
- Context
- The soldiers are in a trench in world war 1 (1914 - 1918)
- In trench warfare, men are alert and on edge for long periods of time, waiting.
- Machine guns and tanks were used in world war 1 - millions of lives were wasted.
- Owen is exposing the appalling conditions in trenches.
- Language
- Bleak language to convey a bleak mood: "merciless", "misery"
- Nature is personified as human enemies: "winds that knive us", "dawn..attacks"
- Language to show the soldiers' nervousness: "worried", "nervous", "cringe"
- Structure
- Heavy repetition to suggest inevitable doom - the men are bound to die.
- The last stanza ends in the same way as the first: there is no change - reflecting that the soldiers have not change position, and are still in the trenches.
- Sibilance for the whistle of bullets: "sudden successive flights...streak the silence"
- Quotations to learn
- "winds that knive us"
- "but nothing happens"
- "dying" (repeated at each stanza)
- "we cringe in holes"
- Ideas about power and conflict
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