In the second stanza Owen uses two similes to describe a person being killed by a gas attack. He says that there is an “ecstasy of fumbling” He says this as everyone is trying to put their gas masks on in time so that they don’t get killed. Owen says that one person doesn’t put their gas mask on in time he describes the person like a man on fire. He also says that the gas looks like you are in a green sea. He says this as the gas is green and seems to be a sea that the soldiers are drowning in it. The solider that failed to put on his gas mask in time was in pain and hoping that someone would be able to help him, but everyone new that he had no chance in surviving.
In stanza three he describes how greatly he was affected by the persons death in the gas attack. He says that the person in the gas attack “plunges” towards him this means that that person who got killed reached for Owen and he is hoping that he could help him.
Owen says that the sight of the man dying from the gas attack haunts him in his dreams. Owen says that the gas attack is so horrible it is all he thinks about.
In the final stanza (stanza 4), He says that the dead soldiers are “flung” into the death wagon. He says this to suggest that the people are just thrown into the wagon and they don’t care about the person who has died and they just forget about him. To them it is just another dead body.
Owen says “eyes withering in his face. He describes the peoples eyes like this as he can see everyone’s eyes and they all look sad and they want to cry. Owen says that the soldiers face look like “devil sick of sin”. This means that the soldiers faces looks like the devils face and the devils face would even look sick seeing all the people getting killed. Owen uses a simile to describe the soldiers. I know this as he uses the world “like”. Owen wants us to image the sound of blood as it comes “gargling” up from his lungs-he is literally choking on his blood. Owen says this, as he wants to shock us. Owen uses two similes, he says that the sight is “obedience as cancer”. The word cancer would not of be allowed to be printed then. He uses this word to describe how bad it was. The second simile he uses is “bitter as cud” Owen is saying that their mouth tastes bitter and they have got blisters in their mouth. In this poem Owen uses the word “innocent”, he uses this word to say that the people in the war had innocent young lives. Owen uses the word “vile” and “incurable”. He says this to say that the war is horrible. Owen also says that the war is like torture.
Exposure
In this poem Owen is trying to show how horrible the bitter cold conditions were for the soldiers and how it made them hard to survive. Owen says that the iced wind knife them. He is trying to say that the wind is worst than the soldiers and every gust of wing feels like they are being stabbed. Owen uses the words “knife us” to make the wind seem alive. The technique he uses is called sibilant alliteration. Owen says that their “brains ache” he says this as the wind is so intense. The soldiers are wearied, as they haven’t slept in ages. The soldiers are also confused as nothing is happening and they are wondering why they are here, they are also worried about the silence.
Owen makes the gust of winds, this is because he says that the wind “knife use”. War seems far off for the soldiers, as nothing has happened to them and it doesn’t seem like war. Also the soldiers haven’t done anything, the soldiers can only hear gunshots.
Owen says that dawn seems to be “living entirely”. Owen says that dawn seems to live forever. He also says that dawn is attacking them. What Owen means is that he can’t see the soldiers, which makes it harder for them.
Owen says “the bullets streak the silence”, this makes the bullet seem loud and it makes it seem that there are lots of them. Owen says the bullets are less deadly than the cold, Owen says this as the cold is hurting them and the bullets haven’t. He also makes the snowflakes seem alive. Owen repeats “nothing happens” in the last lines of most of the stanzas. The soldiers fear that in the morning they may be dead. They think that they will get killed from the cold, not the soldiers. Owen says that the frost fastens to the mud and us, this makes the frost seem alive. In line twenty-six he says, “the doors are closed”, this suggest that they are not welcome, in response they return back to there dyeing. Owen also says, “for love god is dyeing” this means that they have lost faith in God, because thousands of people have been killed in the war.
Conclusion
Overall, Owen thinks that the war is horrible. Some of the words that Owen uses to describe the war and the trenches are, bitter cold condition, boredom, poor physical conditions, exhausts the soldiers, fear of dyeing. Not once does Owen describe the war as good or glorious, this makes it easier to tell that Owen thinks the war is a bad thing. Overall I prefer the poem Exposure, as I think that it was easier to understand.
