Exposure by Wilfred Owen

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  • Created by: randall04
  • Created on: 28-10-19 14:33
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  • Exposure by Wilfred Owen
    • context
      • poem is based around owens experiences in the first world war
      • poem was published posthumously after owen died three days before the armistice and his parents found out about his death on armistice sunday
      • owen was a very well respected solider
      • he was admitted to craiglockhart hospital inscotland for shell shock (PTSD)
        • the only reason he returned to the war after this was due to a profound sense of loyalty to his men
      • he greatly objected to the war
      • winter of 1917 was one of the coldest recorded in the trenches, owen based the poem around this
      • owen initially pursued a career in the church but he realised the hippocrisy in the church and decided not to
    • form and structure
      • The poem is structured as a series of eight stanzas of five lines.
        • The last line of each stanza is noticeably shorter and indented which emphasises its importance.
          • Many of these short lines are either rhetorical questions or the repetition of the phrase ‘But nothing happens’. Both have the effect of emphasising the apparent pointlessness of what is going on.
        • Many of these short lines are either rhetorical questions or the repetition of the phrase ‘But nothing happens’. Both have the effect of emphasising the apparent pointlessness of what is going on.
      • The first four lines of each stanza follow the rhyming pattern of abba. This regularity emphasises the unchanging nature of daily life in the trenches.
      • Owen is employing a technique known as half rhyme eg: knive us/nervous, wire/war, brambles/rumbles
        • This helps to unsettle the reader and defy the expected outcome, something which again echoes the experience of war.
      • much like tennyson owen uses immersive aural imagry
        • uses sibiliance the replicate the sound of bulllets flying past the soliders face
      • poem remains much the same like war
    • quotes
      • but nothing happens
        • is repeated various times throughout the poem,  could highlight owens view of the futility of war. it could be ironic as they are actually dying rather than just sitting there. anticlimactic ending much like waiting in the trenches
          • Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice,But nothing happens.
            • half known could convey that they died shortly after arriving or that they were there for a long time and never formed relationships due to fear of death.  all eyes are ice is a metaphor could be their eyes literally frozen due to the cold or the emotional detachment the soliders feel due to the fact that theyve experienced this too man times . but nothing happens could be owen wanting his death or soceity to change
      • the title could refer to being exposed to the enemy/weather OR exposing the British public to the horrors of war- title is noun
      • Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence"
        • uses sibiliance the replicate the sound of bulllets flying past the soliders face
      • Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us....
        • nature is attacking the men ironic as they are in war. verb-ache highlights their prolonged suffering, alternatively they are in a state of emotional pain. the adjective merciless indicated to power of the natural world and by adding that to knife makes it seem much worse their vulnerability
      • Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire,
        • mad- adj merciless has turned to madness. uses synesthesia through watch and hear highlighting the soliders confusion at what is going on. they have been abandoned by god or alternatively the wind could be a form of divine punishment for their actions
      • Dawn massing in the east her melancholy armyAttacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of grey,
        • personification of clouds- better armed than soliders suggested by massing. pathetic fallacy reflects emotions of men could also be suggesting that the weather feels like it needs to attack the men to exell war from nature. repition of ranks conveys the endlessness of the war. and shivering also can convey the men shivering in the trenches
      • So we drowse, sun-dozed,Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses,---Is it that we are dying?
        • so is caesura changing from the past to the present. seeing the blossoms and birds could be hallucinations due to hypothermia. through the use of the RQ causes an abrubt change in metre bringing them back to the present. through the use of we creates a collective and makes the reader empathize with the soliders
      • for love of god seems dying - can link to owens religous roots - god is no longer helping them
      • Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice,But nothing happens.
        • half known could convey that they died shortly after arriving or that they were there for a long time and never formed relationships due to fear of death.  all eyes are ice is a metaphor could be their eyes literally frozen due to the cold or the emotional detachment the soliders feel due to the fact that theyve experienced this too man times . but nothing happens could be owen wanting his death or soceity to change
  • EXPOSURE WAS ATYPICAL FOR WW1 POETRY AS IT PORTRAYED THE HORRORS OF THE TRENCHES RATHER THAN MAKING IT SEEM GLORIOUS AND PATRIOTIC
  • every stanza starts with a blunt yet powerful sentence then moves onto emotive vocbularly ending with but nothing happens like war

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