Exposure wilfred owen

1. AQA English Literature Paper 2
Section B-Conflict and Power Poetry
TheYpres Salient at Night , Paul Nash,(1917)

2.  Wilfred Owen was an
English poet and soldier
during the FirstWorld War.
 He was born in Oswestry, on
the border near Wales and
taught in Birkenhead and
France.
 When the FirstWorld War
began, he enlisted as an
officer in the Manchester
Regiment.

3.  Owen suffered a number of
traumatic experiences.
 He fell into a shell hole and
suffered concussion.
 He was blown up by a
trench mortar and spent
several days unconscious
on an embankment lying
amongst the remains of
one of his fellow officers.
Dead Germans in aTrench, Sir
William Orpen (1917)

4.  Soon afterwards, Owen was diagnosed as suffering
from neurasthenia or shell shock and sent to
CraiglockhartWar Hospital in Edinburgh for
treatment.

5.  It was while recuperating at Craiglockhart that he
met fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon, an encounter
that was to transform Owen's life because
Sassoon encouraged him to write poetry to
protest against the war.
 Owen recovered and went back to the war. He
and Sassoon felt that, if people thought they
were cowards, then they wouldn’t listen to their
protests.
 However, if a hero protested, it was much harder
to silence them.

6. 2nd Lt,Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, 5th Bn.
Manch. R.
For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty
in the attack on the Fonsomme Line on
October 1st/2nd, 1918. On the company
commander becoming a casualty, he assumed
command and showed fine leadership and
resisted a heavy counter-attack. He personally
manipulated a captured enemy machine gun
from an isolated position and inflicted
considerable losses on the enemy.Throughout
he behaved most gallantly

7.  Owen was killed in action on 4
November 1918 during the crossing of
the Sambre–Oise Canal.
 It was exactly one week (almost to the
hour) before the signing of the
Armistice which ended the war.
 He was promoted to the rank of full
Lieutenant the day after his death.
 His mother received the telegram
informing her of his death on
Armistice Day, as the church bells
were ringing out in celebration.
 He is buried at Ors Communal
Cemetery.

8.  Set during the FirstWorldWar. Soldiers in a
trench at night are on watch.
 However, the freezing cold weather, seems
to be their main enemy.
 The men imagine returning home, but the
doors there are closed to them.They believe
their sacrifice in war is the only way to keep
love ones at home safe.
 They return to thinking about their deaths in
the icy, bleak trenches.

9. Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us . . .
Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . .
Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . .
Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,
But nothing happens.
What technique is used to present
the weather in the first line?
Can you find any sound effects?
What effect do you think Owen
is trying to achieve?
Highlight all the verbs.What do
you notice about them?
What type of pronoun is being
used?Why? What is the effect?
Why do you think lines 2 and 3
use ellipsis (…) ?
What is the effect of the half
line at the end of the stanza?
• Salient: a section of trenches that sticks out into enemy territory.
• As very dangerous place to be as the enemy would surround you on three sides.
• The town ofYpres in Belgium was in a salient and was utterly destroyed during three
huge battles.

10. brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us . . .
Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . .
Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . .
Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,
But nothing happens.
half-rhyme is where there is
vowel variation within the same
consonant pattern in words.
Owen used it a lot in his poetry.
Can you spot the words which
half rhyme because the vowels
are different?
What’s the effect?Why do you
think Owen does it?

11. Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire,
Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles.
Northward, incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles,
Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war.
What are we doing here?
Highlight the verbs again.
What is the effect of each one?
What do they all end with?
What is the effect of comparing
the barbed wire to brambles?
What is the effect of the simile
in line 2?
What is the effect of the simile
in line 4?
Can you spot any half rhyme?
What is the effect of the adverb
“incessantly”?
Can you hear any sound
effects?Effect of the rhetorical question?

12. The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow . . .
We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy.
Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army
Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of grey,
But nothing happens.
Poignant=painfully sad Effect of the rule of three?
Effect of personification?
Ranks=lines
Grey=the Germans wore “field
grey” uniforms
Dawn is usually presented with warm
colours, reds, oranges and yellows. What
is the effect of Owen’s description of
dawn here?

13. Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence.
Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow,
With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause, and renew,
We watch them wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance,
But nothing happens. Highlight the sibilance-why is it used here?
What is the effect of the
alliteration?
What words are used to personify the
wind and snow? What type of words are
they?
Nonchalance=appearing
calm and relaxed.
Nonchalance=appearing
calm and relaxed.
Snow is usually white, pure, innocent etc.What is the
effect of making it black here?

14. Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces—
We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed,
Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed,
Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses.
—Is it that we are dying? Highlight the half rhymes-
what is the effect?
Snowflakes are personified-how does
Owen make them seem malicious?
The men start to “stare” or “dream” of
warmer places in the past at home.
The rhetorical question seems to
be answering the earlier one in
stanza 2.
What is the effect of the verb
“cringe”?

15. Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires, glozed
With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there;
For hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs;
Shutters and doors, all closed: on us the doors are closed,—
We turn back to our dying.
Notice how each line in this
stanza has a caesura.Why? Has
this got anything to do with the
doors?
Highlight the alliteration and sound effects
in this stanza which describes their
exhausted dreams.
Glozed=a combination of
“glowing” and “glazed”.
Why are the coals in the fires
compared to “jewels”? (metaphor)
What do you think he means, “the
doors are closed”?
What do think he means
when he uses the
metaphor, “ghosts”?

16. Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn;
Now ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit.
For God's invincible spring our love is made afraid;
Therefore, not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born,
For love of God seems dying.
Home fires can only keep
on burning if they fight in
the cold trenches to
protect those at home.
Notice how the things at
home are from happier,
warmer, sunnier times.
This is contrasted
(antithesis) with the cold of
the trenches.
Line 4-therefore we don’t hate lying out
here as we are sacrificing ourselves.
What are the two possible meanings of
the final half line?
The stanza is very reflective
and thoughtful. Seems to be
telling us the deeper meaning.

17. Tonight, this frost will fasten on this mud and us,
Shrivelling many hands, and puckering foreheads crisp.
The burying-party, picks and shovels in shaking grasp,
Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice,
But nothing happens. Zeugma=one verb acting on two nouns
What is the effect of the two verbs in line 2?
Why are the faces “half-known”?
Can you spot the metaphor?

18.  This poem is this poem about?
 What other poems could you compare it to?
The power of
nature
The reality
and effects of
war
A bleak lack
of hope
Loss and
absence

19. Paul NashThe Menin Road 1919

20. Paul Nash,Void (Néant) 1918