Here the use of ‘our’ in the first line of the poem creates a sense of empathy for the soldiers and Owen. As well as this, the personification of the winds creates the image that the soldiers are being attacked at all sides, by different enemies. This adds to the horrors of war by implying there is no escape for the helpless soldiers.
Throughout the majority of the poem, the darkness is described as metaphysical:
“The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow”
By stating that the darkness has forces outside of this world, the reader gains an impression the it is evil, and creates a growing sense of fear inside the soldiers, adding to their horrors in the battlefield. The use of the words ‘misery of dawn’ gives the impression that the rise of dawn starts the beginning of the cycle of misery and torture, which is un-escapable, and therefore horrific.
In ‘The Exposure’, the endings of the stanzas are different to the rest of the structure:
“But nothing happens.”
The short, brief sentences at the end of each verse create immense tension inside both the soldiers and the reader, adding to the climax of the war. The words also show the war is dull, and slowly the emptiness eats away at the soldiers, creating more fear and horror left in them.
The second half of ‘The Exposure’ describes that the soldiers appear to enter a dream-like state:
“We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed,”
Here Owen shows through the imagery and language that the soldiers are suffering so much that the negative atmosphere engulfs them, causing the horrors of war to create a wild sense of insanity in the soldiers. The use of the words ‘we cringe in holes’ shows that the exposure of the war is adding to the horrors, and killing them more quickly than the weapons.
Unlike the usual cliché of soldiers, the men seem passive throughout the course of the attack:
“Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire.
Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles.
Here the passiveness, shown in the words ‘watching, we hear’ of the soldiers reflects the innocence they had as young men before the war. With the war slowly destroying the emotions and innocence of the men, they become puppets on the battlefield. The destroying of emotions brings thoughts of horror in the reader’s head.
At the end of the second and fifth stanzas, Owen attaches rhetorical questions to the short sentences:
“What are we doing here?”
Here, the language Owen uses is a lot more clear and blunt than the rest of the poem. He uses this to get his point across, and by using rhetorical questioning, he challenges the reader to find reasons against the futility of the war.
In the fourth verse, Owen states that the bullets fired by the enemy are less deadly than the air surrounding them:
“Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence.
Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow,”
The language in the quote states that the eerie silence and the atmosphere creates a deeper sense of fear than the thought of being hit by the bullet. For the atmosphere to bring to soldiers closer to death than the bullets, the horrors of war must cause the soldiers the feel trapped and constantly worried.
Overall, because of the overuse of imagery and the attitudes of suffering shown in the language of the soldiers, Owen shows the horrors of war more effectively in The Exposure to the other of his poems. By showing that the weather and atmosphere are eating away at them, and their passive response reflects their vulnerability and innocence, we see the suffering of the young men in its full form in the war.
