Analysis of "Exposure" by Wilfred Owen

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Wangari Mumbi Kiarie

Exposure Part 2 Analysis

Written Commentary

EXPOSURE-WILDFRED OWEN

                  “Exposure”, by Wilfred Owen is a poem whose resounding message heavily relies on the title of the poem. Owen explains that the soldiers who were fighting a war, which seemed like, ‘a dull rumor’ as it hardly took place, were challenged by greater enemies that represented themselves in the form of the harsh elements of nature, the indifference of God’s love and the boredom that wore them out and ultimately led to their death. The poet successfully passes on this idea to the readers through the use of stylistic devices such as metaphor, repetition, imagery, contrast and diction.

                   The physical separation of the poem into part one and two serves as a representation of the distinction between night (talked about in part one) and day (talked about in part two). The irony is that in reality, there is not much difference between night and day because with the coming of each dusk or dawn meets the soldiers facing the same hardships brought about by the elements of nature. In the first line of the stanza, the persona explains that the, ‘pale flakes with lingering stealth (would) come feeling for our faces’. The use of personification emphasizes that the snowflakes’ ability to reach out to the soldier’s faces and feel them or touch them. However in contrast, unlike human touch, which would be gentle, warm and soft, the flake’s touch is cold and unnerving and would creep up on the soldiers who would find themselves covered with, ‘frost’.  In line two, the persona says that they had their backs on ‘forgotten dreams’ and they stared out into the fields, ‘snow-dazed’. The soldiers were young people with dreams and hopes for the future but the elements made them dazed unable to think or react and even killed them cutting them off completely from their dreams of the future. Also in line three of stanza five, the persona explains that they would, ‘drowse, sun-dozed’. Both drowse and dozed stress the meaning of being half asleep. The fact that it was during the day and they were half asleep shows that death, which is a more grievous form of sleep, was right around the corner. The theme of conflict between nature and man is brought out by the deep contrast between the fall of the soldiers and the rise of nature. From previous knowledge, we know that during the war, men who succumbed to the circumstances surrounding the war, were buried in ditches or even left to decompose in the ditches. The persona explains that these ditches were, ‘littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses’. The use of the word ‘littered’ in a hyperbolic manner emphasizes that nature blossomed due to the deaths of the soldier. The use of the word also gives us a visual imagery of how the blossoms grew on the ‘natural coffins’ of the young soldiers, reflecting the way during funerals people throw flowers on the casket’s of their loved ones. Nature was winning and was delighted at the war.

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                  In stanza two, the soldier’s ‘ghost’s drag home’, this gives us the impression that the soldiers were remembering the memories of their homes through reveries. They remembered the, ‘sunk fires glozed’. The word glozed is a mixture of the words, ‘glow’ and ‘glazed’. This further emphasizes that the memories of the soldiers were at a heightened state because they had long experienced the feeling of not being at home. The persona uses metaphor when he explains, ‘for hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs’. The mice have been compared ...

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