Exposure

What happens?

Waiting soldiers are worn down by cold, fear and a lack of progress.

Big idea

War destroys through exhaustion and waiting as well as battle; nature defeats the promise of military purpose.

“merciless iced east winds that knive”

Personification — Weather is imagined as a pitiless attacker.

“But nothing happens.”

Refrain — Repeated inaction becomes an account of gradual destruction.

“Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army”

Metaphor — Dawn brings another hostile force rather than rescue.

“All their eyes are ice,”

Metaphor — The final bodily image freezes perception and life together.

Form

Eight five-line stanzas; recurring shortened endings and pararhyme prevent a reassuring resolution.

Context

Owen wrote from his experience of the First World War. The collective voice centres soldiers’ suffering.

Compare

Storm on the Island: threatening nature. Bayonet Charge: different wartime experiences.

Voice, tone and feelings

Opening watch · Exhausted and anxious — Silent waiting already causes bodily and mental pain.

Snow and imagined home · Numb and estranged — Dreams of warmth offer no secure escape; the men imagine themselves shut out.

Faith and burial · Desolate — Religious doubt and frozen faces replace the expectation of a meaningful advance.

Recall

Why is inaction so destructive here?

Read the full poem in your own AQA anthology. Anthology information and source.