1. Exposure by Wilfred Owen
What does the title suggest this poem will be about?
Exposure by Wilfred Owen

2. Meanings... Leave unprotected – be subjected to danger.
Put on display for all to see.
Let light into film.
Suffer and eventually die from the cold.

3. Read the poem out loud in pairs.
What is the biggest threat to man (in this situation)?
Man himself
War
Bullets
Weather
Nature
Duty / compulsion /expectation
Absence of God
Pick one of these points and find three quotes to support your argument.

4. Exposure to weather and nature’s elements...
‘we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire /…among its brambles.’
‘Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army / Attacks once more in ranks’
‘the merciless iced east winds that knive us…’
‘Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence. Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow,’

5. Possible interpretations
Exposure describes the extreme weather conditions which men were subjected to in the trenches and what they also died of. A different type of suffering.
Exposing the actuality of war in the trenches – unknown horrors.
Perhaps Owen ‘exposes’ himself to public criticism?

6. Explore the poem for its key features
Highlight the references to nature which are linked to war.
Rhyme scheme: identify it. Look at the use of pararhymes. How do both link to what is happening on the front?
Punctuation: what types are used and to what effect?
Structure: how are stanzas organised?
What are the main devices used to convey conditions, emotions and tone?
Themes: select 3 important ideas about battle that are shown; evidence with phrases or quotes.

7. Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us...
Sibilance, hard ‘d’ and ‘t’ combine to reflect bitter cutting edge of elements.
Personification of wind – an unexpected fight.
Assonance – sharp ‘A’ sound to indicate the physical pain
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.
Ellipses, wants us to ponder on the idea, cruel winter
Sibilance in last 2 lines captures wind and conveys tension of the soldiers.
Assonance – O – slows pace – like time dragging on?
Assonance – elongated ‘e’ sound to emphasise their fatigue
Reference to Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale
Unnatural silence – makes soldiers nervous

8. Weapons are likened to war through metaphor.
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?
Rhetorical question highlights hopelessness of soldiers and war. Some psychological force forbidding them to do different?
Real war seems distant, while they nervously wait

9. The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow...
Use of ellipsis – time dragging on? Make the reader reflect on soldiers’ misery?
Military language to describe the daily assault of the weather.
Oxymoron: dawn is the provider of hope/motif of positivity.
Sibilance and hard consonants to create desolation.
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.
Alliteration causes sense of oppression.
Dawn is personified as female, but a cruel and merciless taker not a creator of life – subversion of caring and compassionate Mother Nature.
The incessant waiting continues.

10. Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence.
Harsh assonance and sibilance link weather with gunfire. Echo speed and sound of striking bullets.
Alliteration of ‘f’ emphasises blanket gathering – cold and heavy. Light but lethal.
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.
Weather is the greater enemy.
Emphasizes the constancy of the extreme cold and misery.
Already mad wind is indifferent in the face of suffering.
Repetition – waiting, waiting.

11. Pale flakes with lingering stealth come feeling for our faces -
Juxtaposition of the fear and bleakness of trench warfare with the gentle images of the British countryside.
Weather is the silent assassin: behaves monstrously. Creeps up on you.
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?
Hypnotic effect of the snow.
Dream like idyllic: memories of home.
Wonders if the images are an sign they are dying?
Man is animalised: likened to scared animals in holes. Nature’s power.

12. Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires glozed
Repetition of closed – emphasises the hopelessness of not being allowed into the warmth. Compelled to stay and fight. Nostalgic lament: not going to return.
Assonance: extreme effort required by snow numbed spirits – hyperthermia?
Caesura: prepare us for their memories and thoughts.
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.
Symbolism: fires are beautiful but like jewels, offer no warmth or comfort. Represent frozen blood? Valuable lives wasted.
House is deserted; would they be welcome if they went home?

13. Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn;
War is for a just cause, to give security to the generations to come.
They fear that if the enemy isn’t conquered that there will never be fires burning in the hearths of home again. Answer to question at end of S2?
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.
He questions us - is war caused because man's love for God is dying or God's love for man is dying?
Suggests that the men die willingly for others – Christ-like. Parallel to being on the cross?

14. Tonight, His frost will fasten on this mud and us,
Symptom of severe frostbite.
War can lead to a loss of faith in God/God is responsible for the suffering caused by nature. Tone is of resignation, betrayal and despair.
Tonight, 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.
Lost their humanity.
The reality of fulfilling this last duty for comrades. Lost identities – unrecognisable.
Repetition: poem comes full circle - the same vicious cycle lies in wait for the fresh recruits. Weather is merciless and triumphant but why are they here? Nothing is achieved by this sacrifice.