Exposure

Exposure


|Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us . . .                                   |Our brains ache from the cold & from what they have experienced. Weather is as brutal as a knife attack. ‘merciless’ = no   |
|                                                                                                         |compassion, harsh, violence, cruelty. Describes the weather but also the situation they are in. Weather becomes almost a     |
|Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . .                                                 |metaphor for their experience. Links in with worst winter of war when Owen joined trenches. ‘Exposure’ – totally open to     |
|                                                                                                         |deadly weather. Also ‘exposing’/revealing reality to those back home, young men (whole generation) left exposed, naked       |
|Low, drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . .                                             |before realities of war. Our – portrays the conditions from the troops perspective.                                         |
|                                                                                                         |alliteration of ‘w’ – weariness as in tired but also as in tedium, annoyance, fatigued. Slow ‘w’ sound echoes their         |
|Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,                                                 |weariness. Silence is concerning – what might the enemy by plotting? Constantly living in tedium & fear for their lives     |
|                                                                                                         |flares of enemy – searching for their targets (them). ‘salient’ – part of a fortification that projects outward into         |
|But nothing happens.                                                                                     |enemy-held...