Exposure
Starter
Make a list of all the ways a soldier
could be killed in a war.
Introduction
The title is ‘Exposure’
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What could you be ‘exposed’ to in a
war?
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Does the title help you decide what the
soldiers are under threat from in this
poem?
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How might the natural elements and weather be an
enemy to a soldier?
After reading the poem, identify the ‘army of nature’ by
finding a quotation for each element.
1. Wind
2. Wind (gusts)
3. The Sun
4. Rain
5. Air
6. Snow
7. Frost
What do you notice about the way nature is
described?
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Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife 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.
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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?
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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 army
Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of gray,
But nothing happens.
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Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence.
Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow,
With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause and renew,
We watch them wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance,
But nothing happens.
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II
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Pale flakes with lingering 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?
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Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires glozed
With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there;
For hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs;
Shutters and doors all closed: on us the doors are closed We turn back to our dying.
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Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn;
Now ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit.
For God's invincible spring our love is made afraid;
Therefore, not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born,
For love of God seems dying.
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To-night, His frost will fasten on this mud and us,
Shrivelling many hands and 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.
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Wilfred Owen
Tone
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Look at these words from the poem:
Merciless, drooping, mad, twitching, flickering,
poignant, stormy, melancholy, shivering, deathly,
pale, forgotten, sunk, innocent, closed, shaking,
half-known
What sort of words are they?
What would you say they have in common?
Which word(s) best describe the poem’s tone?
Words
The poem is full of personification, where
nature is given human-like characteristics.
Eg. ‘winds that knive us’
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Find two other examples
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Why do you think Owen paints a picture
of nature being alive and deadly?
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If nature is described as being alive,
how are the soldiers described?
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Alliteration, Assonance,
Sibilance
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The poem is rich in consonance (repeated sounds), that
soften the bleak and depressing mood.
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Sibilance: ‘Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious,
nervous’
-Why does this sibilance suit this line very well?
Sibilance building up to alliteration:
‘...war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy.’
-Does this line have a wet kind of sound at all?
Alliteration: ‘With sidelong flowing flakes that flock’
-A soft alliteration, suiting the soft yet deadly snow?
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Structure
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There are 8 stanzas of 5 lines, but the fifth lines
seem disconnected from the stanzas for several
reasons:
1/ They do not link to the half-rhyme scheme.
2/ They sometimes repeat themselves so that
four of the stanzas are followed by ‘But nothing
happens’
3/ The 5th lines are indented and much shorter
than all other lines.
Task
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Annotate the poem in your book, making sure
you note: what the poem is about; the
different techniques the poet uses and WHY
he uses them; speculate about WHY he
might have written the poem; note down your
PERSONAL responses, your thoughts and
feelings.
Exposure
1.
What is the theme of the poem?
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2.
What is the tone of the poem?
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3.
War and the effects of war on the soldiers.
The tone is pessimistic, one of hopelessness
and despair.
Why does the poet start with the word
“our”?
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He shows that this is an event that affected
many.
Exposure continued…
4.
5.
Find an example of images in stanza one and explain
their effect.
 “iced east winds that knive us” – personifies the wind
as being like a killer.
Find two more examples of images in stanza two.
 “mad gusts tugging on the wire, // like twitching
agonies of men” – simile personifies the wind making
it sound more dangerous.
 “like a dull rumour of some other war” – suggests the
noise of the guns has become so constant they are
barely conscious of it.
Exposure continued…
6.
7.
What emotion is conveyed most strongly in stanza
three? Give examples.
 Words that suggest sadness – “poignant”, “misery”,
“melancholy”
 Words that suggests hopelessness – “We only know
war lasts”, “But nothing happens”
How is nature personified in stanza three?
 “Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army //
attacks once more in ranks on ranks of shivering
grey” - the poet presents nature as a military force.
The words “melancholy” and “shivering grey” suggest
that the weather is no happier to be fighting than the
men themselves.
Exposure continued…
8.
Comment on the effect created in line 16.
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9.
Use of alliteration and hard consonant sounds
(consonance) sounds like the bullets
themselves.
How and why does Owen personify the
snow?
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“flowing flakes that flock, pause and renew”
and “Pale flakes with fingering stealth come
feeling for our faces”. Owen makes the snow
sound like a deadly enemy. The alliteration
reflects its deadly silence and softness.
Exposure continued…
10.
Where and why does Owen refer to the
past in the poem?
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In stanzas five and six, the soldiers dream of
being back home before the war started.
“Slowly our ghosts drag home” shows how
hard it is to summon up these memories that
they seem so far away from. “on us the doors
are closed” suggests that they will never be
able to return. Does this mean that people at
home have forgotten about them? Or don’t
appreciate what they’re doing?