How does Owen use language to explore the harsh realities of war in Exposure?

How does Owen use language to explore the harsh realities of war in Exposure? From the title we can infer that the poem is an exposé. It indeed aims to expose the war-time propaganda of World War One. It almost appears comical when the moroseness of Owen's exposure is contrasted to the pro-war propaganda of the time. Owen is a monotone and sobering voice to the romanticised perceptions of war at the time. Society was largely ignorant of the realities of the war and Owen felt duty bound to expose what he believed to be truth about war based his own experience. The poem tells of the harsh weather conditions the soldiers experienced and the anxiety caused simply by being present at war. Owen effectively explains the harshness of the war by his blunt phrasing - in this way, Owen's message is never rarely ambiguous. The first line of the poem begins: "Our brains ache in the merciless iced east winds that knives us..." This dramatic image clearly describes the physical pain that Owen and his soldiers experienced. Being an opening line, it adds to the dramatic effect of the poem and by shocking the reader, immediately awakening them to the realities of war. Owen's lexical choice in using the phrase "brains ache" creates an unpalatable image in the mind of the reader evoking both shock and to a lesser extent empathy for the soldiers. This is followed by the word "merciless"

  • Word count: 1994
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Compare the ways in which Owen portrays the extreme situations which the soldiers experience in Exposure and Spring Offensive

Compare the ways in which Owen portrays the extreme situations which the soldiers experience in 'Exposure' and 'Spring Offensive' In both 'Spring Offensive' and 'Exposure' Owen uses subtle ambiguity which entices the reader leaving them wondering whether Owen is using one meaning of the word or the other. The 'Spring' in 'Spring Offensive' could mean the soldiers were fighting during the season of Spring, however it could be referring to a forward sense of momentum as in 'Springing' forward into battle. Out of these possibilities the first seems the more likely of the two as the poem makes lots of references to nature in spring time. The title 'Exposure' however, is probably the more ambiguous out of the two, as it has two equally plausible meanings. It could simply be talking about the medical condition caused by being 'exposed' without protection to the effects of harsh weather, as the soldiers were. On the other hand Owen could have intended it to have other connotations, meaning that he was 'exposing' the truth about the harsh conditions the soldiers had to endure during the war. The title 'Spring Offensive' an oxymoron as the word spring is associated with warmth and love and happiness whereas offensive is a word of war and aggressiveness which could have meant to contrast the idea of new life in the world during spring with the death that will obviously arise from the

  • Word count: 1017
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Comparing "The Sentry" and "Dulce et Decorum Est".

Comparing The Sentry and Dulce et Decorum Est The Sentry by Wilfred Owen was written in 1917 and is Owen's account of seeing a man on sentry duty injured by a shell that has exploded near him. The man has his eyes mutilated and is blinded by his injuries but at the end claims to see a light again. Dulce et Decorum Est also by Wilfred Owen at a similar time to The Sentry and is Owen's account of seeing a man die from poison gas because he didn't get his mask on in time. In both The Sentry and Dulce et Decorum Est, Owen is trying to demythologise war by portraying horrific examples of the effects of war. In The Sentry, Owen accounts how he saw a man have his face disfigured by a shell. He uses gruesome imagery and descriptions of the man, "Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squids" which puts a dreadful image in the readers mind. Owen uses similar techniques in Dulce et Decorum est when the man is choking from the poison gas, "the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs" which again conjures up grotesque images in the readers mind. By using these techniques Owen is showing how war is not glamorous and there is no real glory in war, just death and destruction. The first paragraph in both poems sets the scene for what is about to come, "We'd found an old Boche dug-out". Nothing particularly eventful happens in these paragraphs but they are needed as they help the reader

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  • Word count: 818
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Commentary. The topic of DULCE ET DECORUM EST is the pain and hurt soldiers of World War I go through

Jad Shakhashir English 10 Block G 22/03/11 English “DULCE ET DECORUM EST” Written commentary “DULCE ET DECORUM EST” is poem (elegy) written by Wilfred Owen. The topic of “DULCE ET DECORUM EST” is the pain and hurt soldiers of World War I go through. Throughout the poem, the poet portrays the theme of pain and suffering to emphasize the Latin statement at the end of the poem “It is sweet and becoming to die for one’s country” by using literary devices such as: imagery, repetition, simile and alliteration. The first part of the poem talks about the horrible conditions the soldiers are in as they gingerly make their way back to base camp when the speaker says, “coughing” “lost their boots” “fatigue, deaf”. As the poem goes on, we see the soldiers dying due to gas grenades as they head back and the way they die is shown in detail “drowning” “helpless” “chocking, drowning” “blood”. The final part of the poem switches from past and plural to present and singular tense as the speaker moves from an army in battle to a single soldier (speaker) when the speaker says: “it is sweet and becoming to die for one’s country”. The literary devices included in this poem to underline the theme include: Imagery, Repetition and Similes. An example of Imagery is when the speaker says “limped

  • Word count: 657
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Explore some of the ways in which Wilfred Owen presents the Natural world in his poems.

PLAN: -Intro -Natural world as beautiful/protective/restorative. -Beautiful -Protective -Restorative -Transitional Paragraph -Natural world as Insurgent, cowardly and cruel. -Conclusion INTRO: Owen’s presentation of nature is ambiguous. Through his poems he acknowledges the beauty and purity of nature on one hand, while on the other it is presented as cruel and subversive when associated with war. These two very different sides of nature are best portrayed in Exposure in 1917, Futility and Spring Offensive in 1918. To begin, Owen describes the natural world as beautiful, restorative and protective. His references to beauty of nature and the recurring theme of the sun clearly shows how Owen is somewhat in awe of nature. In the 3 first stanzas of Spring Offensive, Owen describes nature with such charm that the soldiers waiting to go into action are “marveling” at the grass, at nature’s purity. They can hardly believe such beauty exists amongst pain and suffering. The ‘May breeze’ calms them as they feel the pleasing ‘“summer oozed into their veins like an injected drug”. In this imagery we feel that this beauty is like a drug to them, they are under such pressure that they require anesthetic. “oozed” implies that they are grateful for a moment to remember happier times. Nature is thought to have restorative power. An example of this is

  • Word count: 1218
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Analysis of Wilfred Owen's "The Last Laugh".

Andrew.S 1KS English The Last Laugh Wilfred Owen is well known for his portrayed war poetry on the trench and gas warfare. Owen wrote many poems during his lifetime and one of them is called ‘The Last Laugh’. ‘The Last Laugh’ is very short but incredibly effective because it’s from the weapon’s perspective and from his first hand experiences of war. The main idea Wilfred Owen wanted to convey was that it’s not the soldier’s who get the last laugh since many people died and many soldiers would not laugh about it. He shows that the machinery of the war is the master of the soldiers and that the weapons had the last laugh. In this essay I will talk about how Wilfred Owen conveys his feelings on war by his use of imagery, his choice of language, the structure of the poem and the voice and tone of the poem. First of all, Owen creates images that really convey his experiences of WW1. The poem starts off with a solider that shouts “Oh! Jesus Christ! I’m hit.” This solider is either just swearing because he was hit or he could have actually been crying out to God because he is religious. In the last stanza Owen shows an image of a solider who “slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud.” You can really picture an image of a solider that just got shot and is about to die and the last thing he thinks of is his loved one. You can imagine him closing his

  • Word count: 1707
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Comparing Wilfred Owen's The Sentry and Dulce et Decorum Est

Wilfred Owen: The Sentry and Dulce et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen’s poetry is not about grandeur, dominion or altruism. It is about war and the grotesque horrors that it represents to the former nation, the nation of today and the nation of tomorrow. Owen did not write in self-pity but in the pity of war. His poems The Sentry and Dulce et Decorum Est are resonant, portentous and multi-layered works characterised by poignant honesty and profound compassion whilst embodying both differences and similarities to each other. Wilfred Owen’s Dulce and The Sentry are both presented as a vignette from the front lines of the First World War. In Dulce, Owen describes British soldiers being attacked with gas, however, in The Sentry he depicts the shelling of his sentry. He employs sibilance to imitate the sound of the gas when he states, “Dim, through the misty panes…” as Owen sets eyes open the soldier who had been gassed. Caesura has been exploited after ‘dim’, fracturing the line to illustrate the horror that Owen experienced to the reader. He also uses the same technique in The Sentry when he sees the soldier falling down the steps of their dugout after a shell attack. Owen states, “The sentry’s body; then his rifle.” Again, he is conveying the dismay and incredulity of what he is witnessing. He also writes in the present continuous tense at both times in the poem,

  • Word count: 2041
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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In his poems Wilfred Owen wanted to show the pity of war. Discuss how he manages to do this in Anthem for Doomed Youth and The Send-Off

In his poems Wilfred Owen wanted to show the pity of war. Discuss how he manages to do this in “Anthem for Doomed Youth” and “The Send-Off” “My subject is war, and the pity of war. The poetry is in the pity. All a poet can do today is warn” This is what Wilfred Owen said when he used to write poems and he does as he said. His duty was to show the pity of war, his method was by writing poems and expressing war and his feelings in the poems. He does this very well because he was on the field, he was a soldier so he puts it in perspective. In “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, Wilfred shows the pity of war by comparing various events in real life with those on the field. The word “Doomed” shows the many soldiers which will die or are already dead. He starts off by comparing the battlefield with a funeral. He says that basically they are being sent to their funerals by going to the battlefield because they are bond to die in the war. He compares the coffins with the trenches. He also compares the sound of the bombs in the battlefield to the bells in the church and that they do not receive the normal ceremonies but they die there in the battlefield, they are like animals, which he compares the soldiers as “cattle”. He also compares the normal burial to how they will die. They will not have a normal burial but die; they will not have a white sheet placed over their

  • Word count: 666
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Commentary on "Exposure" by Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen's Exposure : Brains aching, dying, eyes becoming ice, all this sounds like a nightmare. In Wilfred Owen's "Exposure," the speaker talks about the nightmares of not war but the cruelty of nature. In Exposure, Owen describes the fury of nature and how soldiers in the war die not only because of war. Exposure to the severe cold is killing everyone. The speaker starts off by saying, "Our brains ache." The negative nature of this statement gives one a clue as to the negative themes in the rest of the poem. One of the present themes in the poem is silence. However, the presence of silence is ironic because it is wartime, and that is a time of noise and chaos. This silence is unnerving for the war soldiers also as stated, "Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous, but nothing happens. Another theme in the poem is death. The theme of death is not surprising at first, since it is wartime and people die during war, but these people are dying because of the cold. The war in the poem is practically nonexistent. The speaker constantly talks about dying, like the time he asks, "Is it that we are dying?" Or when he says, "For love of God seems dying." Clearly, these people have no hope whatsoever. A very important theme, God, is also present in this poem. "Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn; Nor ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit.

  • Word count: 778
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Owen has been praised for his bleak realism, his energy and indignation, his compassion, and his high technical skills. Discuss the validity of this assessment.

Owen has been praised for his ‘bleak realism, his energy and indignation, his compassion, and his high technical skills’. Discuss the validity of this assessment. Wilfred Owen is known for his painfully true stories of soldiers in the First World War. A young soldier himself, he composed poignant and accurate details and used them to mould incredibly moving poetry. Owen would have been a channel for alternative views on the war, views that would have drastically changed from the time he had enrolled. His views, sometimes interpreted as less patriotic, combined with his realism and linguistic talents have made him one of the most enjoyable poets of his time. The language in Disabled is Owen’s main vehicle in creating a really moving piece. The first two stanzas of the poem focus on the physical aspects of this young man’s life and to some extent the views of wider society, also touched on later in the poem. This first stanza sets the scene for this poem. The tone of the poem is very solemn, highlighting in particular, this man’s physical disability. However the language is what draws the reader in and evokes strong emotions towards the subject. The first line of note is ‘Legless, Sewn short at elbow’. This is where we get a first glimpse of the injuries sustained by the young soldier. He has lost part of his arm and both legs. The sentence is disjointed, and

  • Word count: 1517
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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