What to Say About ‘Exposure’ In An Essay

Power and ConflictEnglish LiteraturePoetry
Written By Natasha Tabani

A list of pretty much everything you can say about Wilfred Owen’s ‘Exposure’ if you’re writing a Power and Conflict AQA GCSE Literature essay! It’s written in note form so you can get to grips with the ideas as quickly as possible.

If you want an in-depth analysis of the poem and its themes, take a look at our revision guide or check out our Complete Revision Pack below. 

Exposure 

  • Numbness / dissociation of war 

  • Idealism vs reality of war - propaganda 

  • The pity of war - tragic mode 

  • Boredom and repetition, monotony 

  • Exhaustion and extreme fatigue

  • Dreams and hopes 

  • Powerlessness / disempowerment of modern warfare 

  • Lack of skill in modern warfare 

  • Horror of waiting for death 

  • Ptsd / overwhelm - psychological perspective 

  • Bathos / anticlimactic experience of war 

  • Difficulty of reconciling a religious perspective with the horrors of war 

  • The worst of human capability 

  • Nature as an expression of God, in direct conflict with humans 

  • Large scale warfare as unnatural and unsanctioned by God 

  • Slow agony of dying or waiting to die 

  • Frontline perspective of a real life soldier 

  • Guilt of living while others are dead, grief and loss 

  • Inability to fully explain or express the true lasting impact of war 

  • Criticism of modernity 

  • Anti-propagandistic backlash against the contemporary media portrayal of war - a kind of conflict with mainstream society / government agendas 

  • Lack of heroism, anti-Romantic perspective (although the poem is also influenced by Keats, Owen’s favourite poet) 

  • Unsettling and uneasy atmosphere, tension 

  • Chaos, panic, unpredictability of war 

  • Lack of skill - war as a game of numbers, modern warfare tactics are brutal and calibrated towards mindless killing of unseen enemies 

  • Lack of martyrdom, tied to death of religion 

  • Masculine / feminine dichotomy expressed in the conflict between humans and nature 

  • Distorted passage of time

Thanks for reading!

Need more help? Take a look at our Complete Power + Conflict Revision Course!

This course includes: 

  • A full breakdown of all the poems 

  • Tons of theme, context and language/structure/form analysis 

  • Key quotes 

  • Practice essay questions 

  • Grades 5-9 example answers 

  • + more! 

Natasha Tabani
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All The Points You Can Make For ‘Remains’ In An Essay