Exposure by Wilfred Owen

Francis Gilbert

Learning objectives

To learn about the power of repetition

To learn about a poet’s use of half-rhyme.

To learn how a poet creates a sense of horror

Exposure by Wilfred Owen 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.

The poem continued

   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

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,

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.

Hot stew in the trenches

Questions

Owen repeats that “nothing happens” at the end of each verse. Why?

Pick out THREE things that actually do happen…

What does not happen in the poem?

Match quote and analysis

QUOTATION

“Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence”

“We drowse, sun-dozed/Littered with blossoms…”

“The burying-party, picks and shovels in shaking grasp,/Pause over half-known faces…”

ANALYSIS

Owen uses onomatopoeia to conjure the fear of the people who have come to bury the dead

Owen uses natural imagery to suggest the beauty of nature and make a contrast with the horror of man-made war.

Owen deploys sibilance to suggest the whizzing of the bullets…

Useful links

http://www.wilfredowen.org.uk/poetry/exposure

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1XH6tn9WJo

Tasks

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.

EXTENSION ACTIVITIES: Either: write your own creative response: a

poem, a story, a picture, an article, music, a slide-show of related images.

Or: write a critical essay on the poem, explaining why it is effective.

Plenary and review

Review whether you have learnt the learning objectives – if not, get a partner to teach you!

Teach the poem to the person sitting next to you;

Summarise the poem in ONE sentence.

If the poem was an object/person/animal, what it be and why?