A Poem By Wilfred Owen

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EXPOSURE
A Poem By Wilfred Owen
Presentation by Richard and James
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KEY THEME SILENCE
More personalised
Simile the wind compared to a sharp knife that
pierces the soldiers
A sense of perspective Owen portrays the
conditions from the troops perspective
Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds
that knive us...Wearied we keep awake because
the night is silent...Low, drooping flares
confuse our memory of the salient...Worried by
silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,But
nothing happens. Watching, we hear the mad gusts
tugging on the wire,Like twitching agonies of
men among its brambles.Northward, incessantly,
the flickering gunnery rumbles,Far off, like a
dull rumour of some other war.What are we doing
here?
Rapid rolling adjectives listed to portray a
feeling of n ot only suspense but also a blunt
way of adding a sense of anticlimax, with
following line highlighted in blue.
Conditions depicted so vividly by Owen also
portrayed by John Nash in his picture Over The
Top. The picture also picks up the eerie
unnatural aura of Owens poem.
Again, similes between the conditions and
atmosphere and human emotions.
ANTICLIMATIC FINAL SENTENCE Expertly introduces a
sense of suspense and heightens the inevitable
climax at the end of the poem
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Hyperbole exploited by Owen to dramatic effect,
similarly to the preceding and succeeding
paragraphs, to grab the attention of his audience.
Conditions heavily focused upon recurring theme.
The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow...We
only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag
stormy.Dawn massing in the east her melancholy
armyAttacks once more in ranks on shivering
ranks of grey,But nothing happens. Sudden
successive flights of bullets streak the
silence.Less deathly than the air that shudders
black with snow,With sidelong flowing flakes
that flock, pause, and renewWe watch them
wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance,But
nothing happens.

• COLOUR
• Dreary colour
• - Melancholy

Alliteration again to grab the attention of the
reader and deliver his metaphor of bullets to
birds.
Wind has a sense of purpose!?!
Personification of conditions in this case
snow.
Structure - Recurring most paragraphs consist
of a dramatic first sentence (red), a rapid
rolling list of emotive adjectives or
descriptions (blue) and finally an eerie
anticlimax (green.)
Reminding us whose perspective this is.
We context collectivism in the trenches and
in the army - interdependence.
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Dramatic hard-hitting sentence, again giving life
to conditions, as if Owen is manipulating them or
that they have some malevolent intention.
quote here and there, the red dawn glow
some of Owens vivid literary portraits are
echoed in SherriffsJourneys End
Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling
for our faces-We cringe in holes, back on
forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed,Deep
into grassier ditches. So we drowse,
sun-dozed,Littered with blossoms trickling where
the blackbird fusses,-Is it that we are
dying? Slowly our ghosts drag home glimpsing
the sunk fires, glozedWith crusted dark-red
jewels crickets jingle thereFor hours the
innocent mice rejoice the house is
theirsShutters and doors, all closed on us the
doors are closed,-We turn back to our dying.
Sense that climax is oncoming by showing that the
soldiers are reminiscing on past times.
Rhetoric we know they are dying because we can
sense there should be some climax to the poem.
snow-dazed sun-dozed This both offers
contrast but also offers some insight into some
of the battle conditions.
Subtle references to death the innocent mice
rejoice the house is theirs. It was common
knowledge that the soldiers had to share their
trenches and dugouts with mice and rats.
? the same structure is kept throughout one
would expect that there would be some change in
the structure either to speed it up to introduce
a dramatic climax or simply drag it out to evoke
an anticlimax however Owen doesnt noticeably
vary his approach throughout the poem.
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Owen depicting the destruction of Gods very own
creations in the face of rampant war, which is
almost personified in this penultimate stanza.
Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires
burnNor ever suns smile true on child, or
field, or fruit.For God's invincible spring our
love is made afraidTherefore, not loath, we lie
out here therefore were born,For love of God
seems dying. Tonight, this frost will fasten on
this mud and us,Shrivelling many hands,
puckering foreheads crisp.The burying-party,
picks and shovels in their shaking grasp,Pause
over half-known faces. All their eyes are
ice,But nothing happens.
THEME THE INFLUENCE OF GOD ON THE BATTLEFIELD
Owen is heavily accentuating this message the
love of God seems dying. It would seem the
ultimate comment to say that the battlefield
extinguishes the very belief in God, as He is
helpless in the face of the cackle of gunfire.