A poem written by the World War One poet, Wilfred Owen, is 'Exposure'. This poem is set out to show the reader what the conditions were really like during the First World War and to make it clear that the events that surrounded him, were not pleasant. In this essay, I am going to write about how Owen exposes the pointlessness of War, throughout this poem.
In Verse One, Owen starts by explaining how he and the people around him are feeling. He writes that their brains ache by the winds that are blowing. This shows that the cold is physically hurting them by giving them sore heads. We can assume that they are in a trench during World War One and there are flares going off around them. They are all awake because of the silence, as this is abnormal due to them normally hearing artillery bombardment. One of the techniques that Owen uses in this paragraph is personification, in the first line. He writes "the merciless east winds that knife us". This helps to show the pain that the wind was causing to the men, and comparing it to the pain that would be caused if it was a knife that was being stabbed into them. In this sentence, a knife isn't really 'knifing' them, so this shows that personification is used. Also in Verse One, consonance is also used. He writes "worried by silence, sentries, whisper, curious, nervous". Throughout this sentence, we can hear a repeated 's' sound. This helps to show that they were worried as the 's' makes the words sound sharp and nasty.
In Verse Two, Owen tells us that the men spend their time waiting for something to happen. The visibility around them is weak, but they can clearly hear the wind blowing frantically through the barbwire that encircles them. We can see that they don't know why they are stuck in a trench, waiting for something to happen. It hints that they don't have good leadership within the group. A technique that Owen uses in this paragraph is some more personification.