Exposure - Wilfred Owen

Exposure - Wilfred Owen

1. 'But nothing happens' - Repetition, paranoid, left waiting

2. 'Incessantly' - Adverb, constant, without stopping

3. Long poem - Long wait for soldiers

4. 'East winds that knive us' - Personification, sharp coldness

5. Realities of war

6. 'We' - Pronoun, personal, happening to them, unity

7. 'Silent' - Adjective, dead, dying

8. 'Our ghosts dragged home' - Noun, spirit/soul left them, heart at home, given up

9. 'Worried by silence' - Adjective, should be good thing, waiting for death, are they coming?

10. Based on WW1

11. 'Our brains ache' - Cold, memories

12. 'Merciless' - Adjective, uncaring, emotionless

13. 1917 - Coldest winter in living memory

14. 'Sentries whisper, curious, nervous' - Noun, adjectives, confusion, why's nothing happening?

15. Soldiers waiting overnight

16. Owen was in army, personal experience

17. 'Wearied' - Verb, weak, tired

18. Discharged from army suffering from shell shock

19. 'Some other war' - So far off, not near them, long wait

20. 'Misery of dawn' - Oxymoron, noun, 'Dawn' should be positive, hope

21. 'Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of grey' - Attacked before, cold, strong army

22. 'War lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy' - Sibilance, facing reality

23. 'Mad gusts tugging on the wire' - Personification, angry weather, deadly, strong

24. 'Flowing flakes that flock' - Fricative alliteration, noun, softness of snow, lightness of mind

25. 'What are we doing here?' - Rhetorical question, pointless, futile, why are they waiting?

26. 'Is it that we are dying?' - Rhetorical question, hit them, uncertain, confused, realisation

27. 'Nonchalance' Noun, don't care, bored

28. 'Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army' - Personification, nature is real battle, sad

29. 'Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence' - Sibilance, sound of bullets flying through air, breaks silence, hope, should be dread

30. 'Closed' - Adjective, don't fit in, disconnected, changed, locked out, can't go back

31. 'Snow-dazed' 'Sun-dozed'- Contrast, retreating back to memories

32. 'Crusted dark-red jewels' - Noun, frozen blood, precious to survival

33. 'Love of God seems dying' - Noun, given up on faith/religion/beliefs, why am I suffering?, why did God let this happen?

34. 'Tonight' - Noun, past tense

35. 'Half-known faces' - Unrecognisable, look different, didn't really know eachother

36. 'Shrivelling many hands, puckering foreheads crisp' - Dead people, frozen, dying

37. 'All their eyes ice' - Metaphor, lifeless, dead, fear, emotionless