Exposure

1. Exposure

2. StarterMake a list of all the ways a soldier could be killed in a war.

3. Introduction • The title is ‘Exposure’ •  What could you be ‘exposed’ to in a war? •  Does the title help you decide what the soldiers are under threat from in this poem?

4. 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?

5. 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. • 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? • 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 gray,             But nothing happens. • 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.

6.  II • 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? • Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires glozedWith 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. • 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. • 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. • Wilfred Owen

11. Tone •  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?

12. Words • The poem is full of personification, where nature is given human-like characteristics. Eg. ‘winds that knive us’ •  Find two other examples •  Why do you think Owen paints a picture of nature being alive and deadly? •  If nature is described as being alive, how are the soldiers described?

13. Alliteration, Assonance, Sibilance • The poem is rich in consonance (repeated sounds), that soften the bleak and depressing mood. • 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?

14. Structure • 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.

15. Task • 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.

16. Exposure • What is the theme of the poem? • War and the effects of war on the soldiers. • What is the tone of the poem? • The tone is pessimistic, one of hopelessness and despair. • Why does the poet start with the word “our”? • He shows that this is an event that affected many.

17. Exposure continued… • 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.

18. Exposure continued… • 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.

19. Exposure continued… • Comment on the effect created in line 16. • Use of alliteration and hard consonant sounds (consonance) sounds like the bullets themselves. • How and why does Owen personify the snow? • “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.

20. Exposure continued… • Where and why does Owen refer to the past in the poem? • 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?