Exposure by Wilfred Owen1

More people die from the expose in the trenches than from conflict itself. This poem tells people at home about the living conditions in the trenches and how truly awful they were alongside the trauma that comes with this weather.
"Our" "We" = when the soldiers are on the front line they lose all sense of identity, they become 1 unit. PERSONAL PRONOUNS. Collective suffering of war.
"Our brains ache" = "our" shows unity "brains" means cold is past the skin and deep into their brains, the cold is relentless. They "ache" from coldness, heightens the severity of the conditions the soldiers live in. METAPHOR
Two battles; against MAN and NATURE
POWERLESSNESS
"Merciless iced east winds that knife" PERSONIFICATION of nature. Violence. Nature is killing them and has no mercy for anyone, it is inescapable.
"..." ELLIPSES, fragmentation of poem, too weak to complete the line.
"But nothing happened" REPEATED REFRAIN. They are simply waiting for something to happen, have no control= POWERLESSNESS. Conflict is pointless. Agony of waiting.
"What are we doing here?" RHETORICAL QUESTION. No answer=No purpose, there is no real reason for them to be there. Questioning their placement, why aren't they fighting?
On the battle field the men make christ-like sacrifices for those they love. Yet Owen suggests their love of God and faith in God seems to have died.
SEMANTIC FIELD of TENSION/POWERLESSNESS. "ache" "wearied" "confused" "worried" "nervous"
"The poignant misery of dawn" As dawn begins so does the misery of the soldiers. "misery of dawn" = PERSONIFICATION. Dawn should bring warmth and light, instead reminds the soldiers of all the darkness in the worlld that they are a part of.
"Innocent" Men are not innocent, they want to fight however the mice are innocent because they live their and their home has been invaded by the soldiers.
"Forgotten dreams" All hope of getting home is lost. They are trapped in the trenches. Despair.
"We turn back to our dying" Not sorry we are out here, fight for the freedom that God wanted us to have. Accepted that they are dying, still wont give up.
"for love of God seems to be dying" Not sorry we are out here, we fight for the freedom god wanted us to have
Horrors of warfare
"Like twitching agonies" SIMILE
"Less deadly than the air than shudders black" The weather is worse than the thought of being killed/others dying around you.
"Half known faces" Conflict has changed them, they are almost unrecognizable
By the end of the poem the soldiers see their death as inevitable
EMOTIVE LANGUAGE, evokes pathos for the soldiers. "Is it that we are dying?" "misery" "melancholy"

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Exposure by Wilfred Owen1

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