In ‘Exposure’ the men ‘project’ their own madness onto the wind and have a strong belief that nature, especially the wind, is against them; this comes from their psychological problems. Owen personifies the wind when he says ‘winds that knive us’ and the men start to think of the wind as ‘mad gusts’, as well as suggesting that the bullets being fired at the men are ‘less deadly than the air’. The men’s madness is now so grave that they are now blaming the wind for their own misfortune and psychological problems; this is ironic as the weather, eventually, kills them as they all suffer from hypothermia. Also, the idea the bullets being fired at them are ‘less deadly than the air’ shows that waiting in the trench and getting cold is more dangerous than the fighting itself. This highlights the theme of the futility of war in that it would be more worthwhile to go into battle and eventually be shot down and die than die from the treacherous weather conditions. The metaphor ‘winds that knive us’ could perhaps be referring to the idea of hand-to-hand combat, which was a common factor in the First World War. However, in this poem the men are trying to fight the wind in a metaphorical way and the wind appears to be beating them as ‘it’ has just ‘knived them’. Owen’s use of nature being ‘against’ the men is effective as he highlights the futility of war; the men do not die from fighting in battle but in fact die from hypothermia, caused from being too cold; dying from cold in a trench and not actually going into battle is a pointless and futile death.
Owen introduces his questioning of a Christian God and the idea of an afterlife; in ‘Spring Offensive’ he reveals, perhaps, the most poignant horror of war. Repetition throughout ‘Exposure’ is used coming at the end of most stanzas in the poem, ‘But nothing happens’. The idea of an afterlife is completely dismissed in ‘Exposure’, which was a contrast to public belief at the time. People during the period of the war believed that there was an afterlife; this was a consolatory myth so that the public did not feel bad that the soldiers were dying pointlessly and that they were, in their belief, going to a Christian ‘Heaven’. Owen disagreed with this view. His use of the line ‘But nothing happens’ is effective because it shows that when the men die, they simply die; there is no ‘Heaven’ or in fact ‘Hell’ as people would have liked to think. This perhaps shows the most poignant horror of war, the futility of war. Also, the idea that ‘the doors are closed’ on the men means that they can never return to their lives back home, return like they were before the war at least. It appears that the men are simply going to die at war and waste the lives they had built up for themselves at home. Another interpretation the reader also gets from the poem is backed up by another line in the same stanza, ‘Slowly our ghosts drag home’, which could suggest that they will return home but will be a shadow of their former selves as they many be both physically and mentally wounded from the goings on in the war. On the other hand, their ‘ghosts’ going home may be the men dead and returning to their homes as a ghost. In the second from last stanza in the poem the idea that the men have wasted their lives and are not going to an afterlife is revisited, ‘Therefore were born’. My interpretation of this line is that were the men really only made for war? If so, Owen has shown that war is futile and pointless, which in turn could suggest that life is futile and pointless. Owen’s personal belief that war is futile is put to use at great strength in ‘Exposure’ as it reveals the most poignant horror of war, the futility of it all; the idea of an all-loving God is shown to be non-existent as surely this ‘God’ would stop war from ever happening.
Owen shows death in ‘Exposure’ to be unnatural and dark and also shows that the men have to face the horrors of war without being able to do anything about it. The idea of death is introduced with ‘the air that shudders black with snow’ and the passivity to it all as they ‘watch them’ and observe the ‘wind’s nonchalance’. The idea of the air shuddering ‘black with snow’ is a powerful oxymoron. Black is usually associated with death and the previous ideas that the weather (snow/wind) will eventually kill the men link in effectively to make the snow seem unnatural as it is usually white. These new, unusual coloured snowflakes fall and the men ‘watch them’; they are passive like in ‘Spring Offensive where the men ‘stood still’; the wind and snow is ‘attacking them’ and slowly killing them but they are unable to fight it, as you cannot fight nature. They also observe the wind’s nonchalance, which is a good use of personification, as they believe the wind does not care and the men feel that the wind is against them. This could suggest that in this mental state the men are in they perhaps feel that the their real enemy is not in fact the Germans but the nature itself, as it poses more of a threat. Owen successfully shows death to be unnatural and shows the horrors the men face from nature are worse than actually fighting on the front line, which in turn starts to show war itself as unnatural.
In ‘Spring Offensive’ Owen first shows nature to be nurturing but throughout the poem shows that is perhaps ‘against’ the men, shows contrast within the poem and is a macrocosm for the men themselves, which is horrific in itself. Near the beginning of the poem it starts off with descriptions such as ‘May breeze’ and ‘buttercups blessed’ but then changes to descriptions such as ‘whole sky burned’ and ‘cold gust’, for example. ‘May breeze’ provokes the reader into thinking about something fresh and new and nothing sinister like war. Nature is also trying ‘to warn’, Owen’s main objective through his poems, the men about what is to come (death) and trys to stop them, ‘Clutching and clung to them like sorrowing arms’; this shows nature to be nurturing and caring. However, Owen soon leaves this idea and shows nature to appear to be ‘against’ the men as the ‘whole sky burned’. This could be due to shellfire and suggest the idea of a ‘hell on earth’. Also, the use of pathetic fallacy with the use of a ‘cold gust’ shows that what is going on in the battle and the mood in battle is reflected in the sky. The idea I got from this series of events was that although nature is ‘helping’ the men in small ways, such as trying to ‘stop’ them from going into battle, it is also against them in other ways; it has good and bad sides to it, much like the men themselves.
In ‘Spring Offensive’, as in ‘Exposure’, Owen strongly reveals his newfound attitude to religion and his belief that there is no afterlife and starts to suggest that there may not even be a Christian God at all; his theme of the futility of war is also revisited. When the line, ‘The sun, - mightier than his whose bounty these have spurned’, appears it perhaps is suggesting that the sun is more powerful than God himself, as the reader presumes that ‘his’ is referring to God. This in turn suggests that the men are wasting their lives that the sun has given them, not God. This strong suggestion Owen gives that God does not exist shows his total lack of belief in any such being at this moment in time. The talk of an ‘infinite space’ in the poem probably links to where the men go when they die, nothingness; reinstating Owen’s lack of belief in an afterlife/Heaven and Hell. It also goes back to his idea of the futility of war as the men are fighting and risking their lives to protect their country and themselves and those back home would like to believe that, if they do die, they are going to be with God; a consolatory myth. Some of the men have survived through use of ‘superhuman inhumanities’. The survivors of the war are the ones who have done things they should be ashamed of, according to Owen. These people surviving then questions God’s existence, as they have survived on their own, not with God having any influence on them. This then makes the reader think that if there really is a God then surely he would not let these people kill others or even let a war start in the first place. The fact that Owen no longer believes in God perhaps lead him to believe that in which case there could be no afterlife as a result. Owen’s idea that there is no God is very effective as his subtle techniques and words makes the reader themselves question if there truly is a God and again highlights perhaps one of the worst horrors of war, the futility of it all.
The ending of ‘Exposure’ shows that the survivors show no remorse, like in ‘Spring Offensive’, and then confirms the theme of the futility of war. When the now dead bodies are being buried the people burying them are looking at ‘half-known faces’ and are picking them up with a ‘shaking grasp’. The reader is made to think, “Are they shaking from remorse for the dead soldier? Or shaking simply because it is cold?” The line ‘half-known faces’ then makes us think that they are shaking because it is cold because the burying party do not truly know the men they are burying that well; they only them how they were at war and they do not know what they were like pre coming to war; the lives they lead before are now gone, thrown away. The metaphor ‘all their eyes are ice’ suggests that the survivors, like in ‘Spring Offensive’ have no emotion or social conscience as they have themselves killed to survive. Hence, ‘their eyes are ice’ because they have no colour, no emotion. The last line of the poem is again ‘but nothing happens’. The reader would like to think the men being buried are going to Heaven, when perhaps they are simply dying, going nowhere. This shows the real horror of war. The fact that after all this suffering they have had to endure, after all the psychological trauma and cold they have suffered, there is no reward, no justice. Most of all, the ending of ‘Exposure’ confirms the theme of the futility of war; the men being buried died from hypothermia; they sat in a trench and froze to death. This was a waste of life, as they did not even die in battle, which is futile in itself.
The ending of ‘Spring Offensive’ also highlights the futility of war and suggests that the survivors should be ashamed of what they have done to survive. When the soldiers ‘Enter hell’ they are, in fact, entering battle. This quote denotes the Christian belief. Throughout the poem Owen has slammed the thought of a real God and put across his fading belief in a God. In fact, this quote shows than man has created a ‘hell on earth’. Owen also slams the ‘immemorial shames’ of the survivors; he believes they should be ashamed of what they have done to stay alive. The quote suggests we should not have respect for the survivors because what they have done is shocking and ‘immemorial’. The use of syntax, ‘why speak not’, is powerful because it adds emphasis on ‘not’ and the fact the survivors do not really care about their dead comrades; their ‘comrades who went under’. ‘Under’ is death but death is an infinite space because, according to Owen, there is no Heaven. Also, the fact they do not speak of their comrades shows that the soldiers know that Heaven/Hell is not real, which is more shameful as they do not want to sacrifice their lives like their colleagues because they know there is nothing after life. Throughout all of ‘Spring Offensive’ and, perhaps most significantly, the last stanza it shows that the futility of war is perhaps the most poignant horror of war; there is no reward/Heaven for their sacrifice of life.
Therefore, in conclusion, in both ‘Spring Offensive’ and ‘Exposure’ Owen successfully puts across his ideas that war is futile and there is no point to it; he does this with a terrific use of metaphors in which he can show the reader just how pointless war truly is. Owen also, perhaps controversially, highlights his fading belief in a Christian God and cannot see how if there really was a ‘God’ that he could let war take place to start with that would lead to thousands of deaths. He also views the survivors of the war to be outrageous in that they are willing to ‘morn’ their own men dying but do not hesitate to pull the trigger without remorse on their enemy when in battle; in doing this Owen shows another point that was is universal and that if you are to morn your own dead then you must do this with the enemy you have just killed, whereas in the poems the survivors appear to show no remorse and perhaps enjoy the killing. Owen combines all the beliefs that he holds and creates poems that show the true feelings and ideas of the men in the war, of which was not told to people back home at the time, and he completely dismisses the idea that the dead would go to a ‘Heaven’ or ‘Hell’ after they die and views this as a consolatory myth made up to make people feel better when those they knew died.
