Exposure Wilfred Owen
Exposure by Wilfred Owen.
“Exposure” by Wilfred Owen was written just before the end of the First World War. Owen wrote this just before he sadly died within the closing weeks of the war.
In the poem, Owen looks into the idea of extreme weather conditions being more harmful and powerful than the actual enemy. Owen created eight very intricate and detailed, rhyming verses, each of which manages to make us feel the pain and sadness the soldiers are facing – in what we think ate the trenches.
Owen begins the poem with some very strong and powerful imagery. He shows us straight away how bad the weather conditions are, their “brains ache”, the cold is incisive, deep inside their bodies. He then goes on to personify the wind by saying how “merciless” the wind from the east is. The wind seems to be intentionally wounding them, “knive us”. We already feel like we are involved in the suffering, as Owen uses the first person, involving himself, us and others. The men in the trenches are afraid of the silence, and seem distant from the action of the war. Their sentries are “nervous”, “curious” and thus, “nothing happens”. This last expression is reverberated throughout most of the other verses, and pronounces the pointlessness of the being.
He continues to personify the wind by describing it as “mad gusts tugging on the wire” he then goes on comparing the barbed wire to “bramble bushes”, and how it seems to capture the dying soldiers. He then, again, makes clear that the war is distant “northward” and “flickering gunnery rumbles”. And then asks a depressing, “what are we doing here?”
Owen continues to use personification to suggest the time of day by saying that the dawn is bringing up an army of grey snow clouds to attack the “shivering rank of grey.” A strong use of onomatopoeia is then used:
“sudden, successive flights of bullets streak the silence”
This phrase may suggest a sudden blurt of action, and the idea of contrast from the previous verses.
“Exposure” by Wilfred Owen was written just before the end of the First World War. Owen wrote this just before he sadly died within the closing weeks of the war.
In the poem, Owen looks into the idea of extreme weather conditions being more harmful and powerful than the actual enemy. Owen created eight very intricate and detailed, rhyming verses, each of which manages to make us feel the pain and sadness the soldiers are facing – in what we think ate the trenches.
Owen begins the poem with some very strong and powerful imagery. He shows us straight away how bad the weather conditions are, their “brains ache”, the cold is incisive, deep inside their bodies. He then goes on to personify the wind by saying how “merciless” the wind from the east is. The wind seems to be intentionally wounding them, “knive us”. We already feel like we are involved in the suffering, as Owen uses the first person, involving himself, us and others. The men in the trenches are afraid of the silence, and seem distant from the action of the war. Their sentries are “nervous”, “curious” and thus, “nothing happens”. This last expression is reverberated throughout most of the other verses, and pronounces the pointlessness of the being.
He continues to personify the wind by describing it as “mad gusts tugging on the wire” he then goes on comparing the barbed wire to “bramble bushes”, and how it seems to capture the dying soldiers. He then, again, makes clear that the war is distant “northward” and “flickering gunnery rumbles”. And then asks a depressing, “what are we doing here?”
Owen continues to use personification to suggest the time of day by saying that the dawn is bringing up an army of grey snow clouds to attack the “shivering rank of grey.” A strong use of onomatopoeia is then used:
“sudden, successive flights of bullets streak the silence”
This phrase may suggest a sudden blurt of action, and the idea of contrast from the previous verses.